Aids to faith : a series of theological essays

1.1012 01012 1863

LIBRARY

OF THE ^

Theological Seminary,3

PRINCETON, N. J.

BR 50 .A32 1871

'

Aids to faith

1

AIDS TO FAITH

SERIES OP THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.

BY SEVERAL WRITERS.

BEING A

%t$g to "feajis raft %tisvtkC

EDITED BY

william Thomson, d. d.,

LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL,

NEW YORK :
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET.
1870.

PKEFACE

The Essays in this volume are intended to
offer aid to those whose faith may have been
shaken by recent assaults. The writers do not
pretend to have exhausted subjects so vast and
so important, within the compass of a few pages ;
but they desire to set forth their reasons for be-
lieving the Bible, out of which they teach, to be
the inspired "Word of God, and for exhorting
others still to cherish it as the only message of
salvation from God to man. They hope that
these Essays may be, to those whose attention
they can secure, incentives to further thought and
reading. They have avoided, rather than sought,
direct controversy. They have excluded person-
ality ; they have not spoken with undue harsh-
ness of the views they have been forced to op-
pose.

For the choice of contributors and the ar-
rangement of subjects the Editor is responsible.
Most of the writers gave their names without
knowing those of their coadjutors ; and not one
of them, but the Editor, has seen all the Essays

TEEFACE.

up to tlie day of publication. Each has written
independently, without any editorial interference,
beyond a few hints to prevent omissions and rep-
etitions, such as must arise when several writers
work without concert.

On the withdrawal of one of the contributors,
Dr. McCaul most kindly undertook a second pa-
per, at a short notice. No one has a better claim
to be heard on the important subjects that have
been confided to him.

Professor Mansel lent much valuable aid to
the Editor in an unexpected increase of labour.

This volume is humbly offered to the Great
Head of the Church, as one attempt among many
to keep men true to Him in a time of much doubt
and trial. Under His protection, His people
need not be afraid. The old difficulties and ob-
jections are revived ; but they will meet in one
way or another the old defeat. While the world
lasts, sceptical books will be written and an-
swered, and the books, perhaps, and the answers
alike forgotten. But the Bock of Ages shall
stand unchangeable ; and men, worn with a sense
of sin, shall still find rest " under the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land."

W. G. & B.

CONTENTS

PAGB

L-ON MIRACLES AS EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY, . . 9

H. L. Mansel, B. D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and
Metaphysical Philosophy, Oxford ; Tutor and
late Fellow of St. John's College.

II.— ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAN-
ITY, 55

William Fitzgerald, D. D., Lord Bishop of Cork,
Cloyne and Ross.

III.— PROPHECY, 97

A. McCaul, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Tes-
tament Exegesis, King's College, London, and
Prebendary of St. Paul's.

IV. -IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION, 157

F. C. Cook, M. A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen,
one of II. M.'s Inspectors of Schools, Prebendary
of St. Paul's, and Examining Chaplain to the
Bishop of Lincoln.

V.— THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION, 219

A. McCaul, D. D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Tes-
tament Exegesis, King's College, London, and
Prebendary of St. Paul's.

q CONTENTS.

PAGE

VI.— ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE

PENTATEUCH, 273

George Rawlinsox, M. A., Camden Professor of An-
cient History, Oxford, and late Fellow and Tutor
of Exeter College.

VII.— INSPIRATION, 331

Edward Harold Browxe, B. D., Norrisian Professor of
Divinity, Cambridge, and Canon Residentiary of
Exeter Cathedral.

YIII.-TIIE DEATH OF CHRIST, 375

William Thomson, D. D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester
and Bristol.

IX.-SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION, . . . .425

Charles John Ellicott, B. D., Dean of Exeter, an
Professor of Divinity, Kiug's College, London.

ESSAY I.

ON MIRACLES AS EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

CONTEXTS OF ESSAY I.

I. luTRODtronoN— A Belief in the reality
of miracles is indispensable to Chris-
tianity.

•j. Miracles belong to the moral as will as

to the sensible evidences of Chris-
tianity, and are part of its essential
doctrines, not merely of its external
accessories.

3. Fallacy of the argument from the dis-
belief in reported miracles of the pres-
ent day; this argument not applica-
ble to the miracles of Christ.

4. Testimony how far able to prove a
miracle as such: the proof of one
miracle removes the antecedent pre-
sumption against others of the same
Beries.

5. Connection betwecnthc miraclesofthe
Old Testament and those of the New.

C. Amount of testimony in support of the
Christian miracles.

7. Fitness of the miracles as accompani-
menta of man's redemption.

8. Statement of the question as related to
modern science.

9. Position of miracles with reference to
the empirical laws of matter.

10. Supposed objection against miracles
from the uniformity of nature —
Hume's argument not strengthened
by the subsequent progress of science.

II. Advance of physical science tends to
increase our conviction of the super-
natural character of the Christian
miracles.

12. Difference, as regards science, be-
tween physical phenomena and works
done by human agency.

13. Final alternative "necessitated by sci-
entific progress.

14 Refutation of Hume's argument: a
miracle is not properly a violation of
the laws of nature, but the introduc-
tion of a special cause.

15. Introduction of special causes is not
incredibh — Objection from the sup-
posed necessary relations of natural
fonts to each other.

1C. Exception to this necessity in the

of the human will— Extension

of the argument from the human will

to the Divine.

17. True conception of a miracle as the
interposition of a superhuman will —
Relation of this superhuman will to
the conception of nature, active and
passive, and to that of law.

IS. Position of miracles with reference to
our conceptions of God's nature and
attributes— Limits within which this
question must be discussed— Form
which it assumes in relation to mira-
cles.

19. Man's conception of God is derived
from mind, not from matter.

20. Conceptions of law, and order, and
causation, are borrowed by material
from mental science.

21. God is necessarily conceived as a
Person, and as related to the per-
sonal soul of man.

22. Nature conceals God : man reveals

God.

23. Consequences of the above principles :
miracles must be judged, not merely
from physical, but also from moral
and religious grounds, and their prob-
ability estimated by that of a revela-
tion being given at all.

24. The possibility of miracles follows
from the belief in a personal God.

25. Evidential value of miracles.— Erro-
neous views on this point — Miracles
how far objects, how far evidences
of faith.

20. Miracles and doctrines, their relation
to each other — Negative character of
the doctrinal criterion: its relation
to the question whether miracles
have been wrought at all.

27. Agency of evil spirits is practically
excluded from the question: practical
question is between a Divine and a
human origin of Christianity, as re-
gards the authority due to each.

2S. ^Theoretical authority of miracles as
'evidences of doctrines.

29. Practical extension of this authority
— Doctrines of natural religion may
practically be proved by miracles,
and have actually been so.

30. Principle on which the evidential
value of miracles depends.

31. Conclusion.

ON" MIEACLES

AS EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

1. "What is the exact position of Miracles among
the Evidences of Christianity, is a question which may
be differently answered by different believers, without
prejudice to their common belief. It has pleased the
Divine Author of the Christian religion to fortify His
revelation with evidences of various kinds, appealing
with different degrees of force to different minds, and
even to the same mind at different times. The grounds
of belief consisting, not in a single demonstration, but
in an accumulation of many probabilities, there is room,
in the evidences as in the doctrines of Christianity, for
special adaptations of different portions to different
minds ; nor can such adaptation be regarded as matter
of regret or censure, so long as the personal preference
of certain portions does not involve the rejection of the
remainder.

The question, however, assumes a very different
character when it relates, not to the comparative im-
portance of miracles as evidences, but to their reality
as facts, and as facts of a supernatural kind. For if
this is denied, the denial does not merely remove one
of the supports of a faith which may yet rest securely
on other grounds. On the contrary, the whole system
of Christian belief with its evidences, the moral no less
than the intellectual influences, the precept and exam-
ple for the future no less than the history of the past —
all Christianity, in short, so far as it has any title to
that name, so far as it has any special relation to the
person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at the
same time.

2. For this question must be considered, not mere-

1*

jq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

]y, as is too often done, in relation to a purely hypo-
thetical case, to a supposition of possible means by
which the Christian religion might, had it so pleased
God, have been introduced into the world otherwise
than it was ; but in relation to the actual means by
which it was introduced, to the teaching and practice
of Christ and His Apostles, as they are portrayed^ in
the only records from which we can learn anything
about them. Whether the doctrinal truths of Christi-
anity could or could not have been propagated among
men by moral evidence alone, without any miraculous
accompaniments, it is at least certain that such was not
the manner in which they actually were propagated,
according to the narrative of Scripture. If our Lord
not only did works apparently surpassing human power,
but likewise expressly declared that lie did those works
by the power of God, and in witness that the Father
had sent him ; — if the Apostles not only wrought works
of a similar kind to those of their Master, but also ex-
pressly declared that they did so in His name, the mira-
cles, as thus interpreted by those who wrought them,
become part of the moral as well as the sensible evi-
dences of the religion which they taught, and cannot
be denied without destroying both kinds of evidence
alike. " That ye may know that the Son of Man hath
power upon earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee,
Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine
house : " " If I with the finger of God cast out devils,
no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you : "
" By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye
crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by
Him doth this man stand here before you whole : " —
let us imagine for an instant such words as these to
have been uttered by one who was merely employing a
superior knowledge of natural laws to produce a false
appearance of supernatural power ; by an astronomer,
for instance, who had predicted an eclipse to a crowd
of savages, or by a chemist, availing himself of his sci-
ence to exhibit relative miracles to an ignorant people
— and we shall feel at once how even the most plausi-

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. -q

ble of the natural explanations of miraculous phenom-
ena deals the deathblow to the moral character of the
teacher, no less than to the sensible evidence of his
mission.

But there is a yet higher witness to this intimate
association of the Christian Evidences one with another,
in that great fact which forms at once the central point
of apostolical preaching and the earnest of the future
hope of all Christian men. If there is one fact recorded
in Scripture which is entitled, in the fullest sense of the
word, to the name of a Miracle, the Resurrection oe
Christ is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in
which the entire Christian faith must stand or fall
with our belief in the supernatural. " If Christ be
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is
also vain." Here, at least, is a test by which all the
evidences of Christianity alike, internal as well as ex-
ternal, moral as well as intellectual, may be tried. If
Christ did not truly die and truly rise from the dead,
preaching is vain and faith is vain ; the Apostles are
false witnesses of God ; nay, Christ Himself, if we may
dare to say so, has witnessed falsely of Himself.

It is necessary to state the case in this manner, in
order to point out the real importance of the interests
at stake. Nothing can be more erroneous than the
view sometimes taken, which represents the question
of the possibility of miracles as one which merely af-
fects the external accessories of Christianity, leaving
the essential doctrines untouched.* Such might pos-
sibly be the case, were the argument merely confined
to an inquiry into the evidence in behalf of some one
miracle as an isolated fact, without impeaching the pos-
sibility of miracles in general. But such is not the
question which has been raised, or can be raised, as re-
gards the relation of miracles to the alleged discoveries

* See ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 94 (third edition). A similar view is taken
by Schleiermacher, ' Der Christliche Glaube,' § 14, pp. 100, sqq. With far
greater truth it is maintained on the other hand by Rothe (' Studien und Kri-
tiken,' 1858, p. 23) that "Miracles and Prophecies are not adjuncts appended
from without to a revelation in itself independent of them, but constitutive
elements of the revelation itself."

jo AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

of modern science. If the possibility of miracles be
granted, the question, whether any particular miracle
did or did not take place, is a question not of science,
but of testimony. The scientific question relates to the
possibility of supernatural occurrences at all ; and if
this be once decided in the negative, Christianity as
a religion must necessarily be denied along with it.
Some moral precepts may indeed remain, which may or
may not have been first enunciated by Christ, but which
in themselves have no essential connection with one
person more than with another; but all belief in Christ
as the great Example, as the Teacher sent from God,
as the crucified and risen Saviour, is gone, never to re-
turn. The perfect sinlessness of His life and conduct
can no longer be held before us as our type and pat-
tern, if the works which He professed to perform by
Divine power were either not performed at all or were
performed by human science and skill. "No mystery
impenetrable by human reason, no doctrine incapable
of natural proof, can be believed on His authority ; for
if He professed to work miracles, and wrought them
not, what warrant have we for the trustworthiness of
other parts of His teaching ? The benefits obtained by
I Ii> Cross and Passion, the promises conveyed by His
Resurrection, are no longer the objects of Christian
faith and hope ; for if miracles are impossible, He died
as other men die, and was laid unto His fathers, and
saw corruption. The prayers whch we offer to Him
who ascended into Heaven, and there liveth to make
intercession for us, are a delusion and a mockery, if
miracles are impossible ; for then is Christ not ascended
into Heaven.

3. In point of fact, even single miracles cannot be
treated as isolated occurrences, and judged as we should
j udge of any similar act narrated at another time. There
is a latent fallacy in the appeal which is sometimes made
to the manner in which well-informed men deal with al-
leged marvels at the present day.* The Christian mir-

* See 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 107. A similar appeal to the practical
denial of miracles is made by Kant, 'Religion innerhalb der Urenzeu der

Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. 13

acles can only be judged in connection with the scheme
of which they form a part, and by the light of all the
collateral evidence which that scheme is able to fur-
nish. The true question is, not what should we think
of, or how should we endeavour to explain, a single mar-
vellous occurrence, or even a series of such occur-
rences, reported as taking place at the present time ?
but, what should we think of one wTho should come
now, as Christ came, supported by all the evidences
which combined to bear witness to Him ? If the world,
with all its advance in physical science, were morally
and religiously in the same state as at the time of
Christ's coming ; if we, like the Jews of old, had been
taught by a long series of prophecies to expect a Re-
deemer in whom all the families of the earth should be
blessed ; if the events of our national history tended to
show that the time was come to which those prophecies
pointed as the epoch of their fulfilment ; if we were in
possession of a religion, itself claiming a Divine origin,
yet in all its institutions bearing witness to something
yet to come — a religion of type, and ceremony, and
sacrifice, pointing to a further purpose and a spiritual
significance beyond themselves ; if one were to appear,
proclaiming himself to be the promised Redeemer,
appealing to our sacred writings as testifying of him-
self, doing works not only full of power but of good-
ness, full of wonder, but also full of love, and con-
firmed by Scriptures expressly declaring that such
works should be done by him that was to come ; doing
them, not in secret, nor in an appointed place, nor with
instruments prepared for the purpose, but openly and
without effort, and upon occasions as they naturally
presented themselves, in the street and in the market-
place, in the wilderness and on the sea, by the sick
man's bed and the dead man's bier ; and expressly de-
claring that he did them by the power of God and in
proof that God had sent him ; — with all these circum-
stances combined, let any unprejudiced man among

blossen Vernunft,' p. 100, ed. Rosenkranz : though Kant does not go so far
as to deny the theoretical possibility of miracles.

j£ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

ourselves say which would be the more reasonable
view to be taken of such works performed by such a
person ; whether to admit his own account of them,
guaranteed by all the weight of his character, or to re-
fer them to some natural cause, which will at some fu-
ture time receive its explanation by the advance of dis-
covery. Surely those who, even in this enlightened
age, chose to adopt the latter hypothesis, rather than
admit the teacher's own testimony concerning himself,
would be the legitimate successors of those who, under
like circumstances, declared, "He casteth out devils
through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils." *

4. But it is said that testimony is unable to prove a
miracle as such. " !No testimony, we are told on high
scientific authority, can reach to the supernatural ; tes-
timony can apply only to apparent sensible facts ; tes-
timony can only prove an extraordinary and perhaps
inexplicable occurrence or phenomenon : that it is due
to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the
previous belief and assumptions of the parties." f What-
ever may be the value of this objection as applied to a
hypothetical case, in which the objector may select
such occurrences and such testimonies as suit his pur-
pose, it is singularly inapplicable to the works actually
recorded as having been done by Christ and His Apos-
tles, and to the testimony by which they are actually
supported. It may, with certain exceptions, be appli-
cable to a case in which the assertion of a supernatural
cause rests solely on the testimony of the spectator of
the fact ; but it is not applicable to those in which the
cause is declared by the performer. Let us accept, if
we please, merely as a narrative of " apparent sensible
facts," the history of the cure of the blind and dumb
demoniac, or of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate ;
but we cannot place the same restriction upon the
words of our Lord and of St. Peter, which expressly

* For this argument I am partly indebted to Dean Lyall, 'Preparation of
Prophecy,' p. 151, ed. 1354.

t' Essays and Reviews,' p. 107. This objection is partly borrowed from
Dean Lyall, p. 23, who however uses it lor a very different purpose.

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES.

15

assign the supernatural cause : " If I cast out devils by
the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come
unto you : " " By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
doth this man stand here before you whole." * We
have here, at least, a testimony reaching to the super-
natural ; and if that testimony be admitted in these
cases, it may be extended to the whole series of won-
derful works performed by the same persons. For if a
given cause can be assigned as the true explanation of
any single occurrence of the series, .it becomes at once
the most reasonable and probable explanation of the
remainder. The antecedent presumption against a nar-
rative of miraculous occurrences, whatever may be its
weight, is only applicable to the narrative taken as a
whole, and to the entire series of miracles which it con-
tains. But if a single true miracle be admitted as es-
tablished by sufficient evidence, the entire history to
which it belongs is at once removed from the ordinary
calculations of more or less probability. One miracle
is enough to show that the series of events with which
it is connected is one which the Almighty has seen fit
to mark by exceptions to the ordinary course of His
Providence ; and, if this be once granted, we have no
a priori grounds on which we can determine how
many of such exceptions are to be expected. If a sin-
gle miracle recorded in the Gospels be once admitted,
the remainder cease to have any special antecedent im-
probability, and may be established by the same evi-
dence which is sufficient for ordinary events. For the
improb ability, whatever it may be, reaches no further
than to show that it is unlikely that God should work
miracles at all ; not that it is unlikely that He should
work more than a certain number.

5. Hitherto we have spoken only of the miracles of
Christ and His Apostles. But the miracles of the Old
Testament also can only be rightly estimated through
their connection with those of the New. The promise
of man's redemption was coeval with his fall ; and the

* St. Matt. xii. 28 ; Acts iv. 10.

jg AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

whole intervening history, as it is told in Scripture, is a
narrative of the steps by which the world was pre-
pared for the fulfilment of that promise. The miracles
of the Old Testament, as has been observed, are chiefly
grouped round two great epochs in the history of the
theocratic kingdom — that of its foundation under Moses
and Joshua, and that of its restoration by Elijah and
Elisha.* They thus have a direct relation to the es-
tablishment and preservation of the Mosaic covenant,
itself a supernatural system, provided with supernat-
ural institutions, and preparing the way for the final
consummation of God's supernatural providence in the
advent of His Son.f Not merely the occasional mira-
cles of Jewish history, but some of the established and
prominent features of their religion down to the time
of the Captivity — the gift of Prophecy, the Shechinah,
the Urim and Thummim, the Sabbatical year, and
others — manifest themselves as the supernatural parts
of a supernatural system, and that system one having
a definite purpose and pointing to a definite encl.J
They were the adjuncts of the Law ; and " the Law
was our shoolmaster to bring us unto Christ."

G. The real question at issue between the believer
and the unbeliever in the Scripture miracles is not
whether they are established by sufficient testimony,
but whether they can be established by any testimony
at all. If it be once granted that testimony is admissi-
ble in the case, it is scarcely possible to conceive a
stronger testimony than that which the Christian mira-
cles can claim. It is the testimony, if ever such testi-
mony was, not of man merely, but of God. Even as
regards one who does not believe in the distinctive
doctrines of Christianity, there are two witnesses to
Christ which no other man, whatever may be his
worth, can claim — the history of the Jewish nation
before His coming, and the history both of the Jewish

* Sec Trench, ' ftotes Oil the Miracles,' p. 45 (sixth edition).

1 Compare Neander, ' Life of Christ,' p. 138, English translation ; Twes-
ten, 'Vorlesungen ueber die Dogmutik,' ii., p. 178; Van Mildert, 'Boyle
Lectures,' Sermon xxi.

X Compare lip. Attcrbuiy, 'Sermons' (1730), vol. i., p. 153.

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. jy

and of the Christian world afterwards. Whether it
was by natural or by supernatural means, it cannot be
denied that He to whom the natural and the supernat-
ural are alike subject has permitted the course of
events in the world to bear a witness to Christ, such as
has never been borne to any other person who has ap-
peared upon earth in the likeness of a man. It cannot
be denied that the prophetic writings contain descrip-
tions which, account for the correspondence as we may,
do, as a fact, agree with the person and history of
Jesns of Nazareth, as they agree with no other man, or
body of men ; that the rites and ceremonies of the
Jewish religion have a meaning as typical of Him,
which no other interpretation can give to them ; that
the temple and its services were brought to an end
after His appearance on earth, as if expressly to exclude
the claims of any future Messiah ; that His dominion
has been spread over the civilized world to such an ex-
tent, and by such means, as no other ruler, temporal or
spiritual, can claim ; that superstitions have given way
before His name which no other adversary had been
able to shake ; that doctrines have been established by
His teaching which in the hands of other teachers were
but plausible and transitory conjectures. However
these things may be accounted for, they are sufficient
at least to mark Him as the central figure of the
world's history, looked forward to by all preceding
generations, looked backward to by all following ; they
are sufficient to secure for His sayings and His acts an
authority which cannot be claimed by those of any
other person.

7. It is scarcely necessary to state how much this
argument is strengthened when it is addressed to one
who believes, no matter on what grounds, in any of the
fundamental articles of the Christian Faith. I do not
speak of one wTho believes in the narrative of the Gos-
pels ; for to such an one the miracles are not matters
of question ; but of one who in any sense believes in
Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, though doubting
some of the records of His earthly life. If God has

18

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

seen lit to redeem the world by Christ and by Christ
alone, what marvel if the history of Christ and of the
dispensation preparatory to Christ exhibits signs and
wonders such as no other history can claim ? The an-
tecedent probability, in this case, is for the miracles,
not against them. It is to be expected that an event
unique in the world's history should be marked by ac-
companiments partaking of its own character. The
miracles are not every-day events, because the redemp-
tion of mankind is not an every-day event ; they be-
long to no cycle in the recurring phenomena of nature,
because Christ has not often suffered since the founda-
tion of the world. Round this great fact of man's re-
demption the accessory features of that wondrous nar-
rative are grouped and clustered as around their proper
centre ; no longer the uncouth prodigies of the king-
dom of Nature, but the fitting splendours of the king-
dom of Grace. It was meet that He who came as the
conqueror of sin and death, who had power to lay down
His life, and power to take it again, should come also
as the Lord of Body and the Lord of Spirit, having
power over the elements of matter and over the
thoughts of men's minds ; foretold by predictions
which no human wisdom could have suggested, tes-
tified to by works which no human power could have
accomplished. Yiewed as part of the scheme of Re-
demption, the marvels of the Scripture narrative are no
longer isolated and unmeaning anomalies, but a fore-
ordained and orderly system of powers, working above
the ordinary course of nature, because their end is
above the ordinary course of nature. The incongruity,
the anomaly, would be if they were not there — if the
salvation of the souls of men was to be brought about
by no higher means than those which minister to their
bodily appetites and material comforts. The daily
wants of the individual, or the progressive culture of
the race, may be provided for or advanced by laws
which work unceasingly from day to day, and from
generation to generation ; but we seek no recurring
law of the Scripture miracles, because we expect no re-

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 29

currence of that fact to which all Scripture bears
witness.

8. The above remarks, though only preliminary to
the main question, are necessary in order to show what
is the real point to be established, if the belief in the
supernatural is to be overthrown. It is not the rarity
of miracles — no one asserts them to be common : it is
not their general improbability — no one asserts them
to be generally probable : it is not that they need an
extraordinary testimony as compared with other events
— such a testimony we assert that they have. It is
neither more nor less than their impossibility — an im-
possibility to be established on scientific grounds, such
as no reasonable man would reject in any other case ;
grounds such as those on which we believe that
the earth goes round the sun, or that chemical ele-
ments combine in definite proportions. In this point
of view the argument is altogether of a general
character, and is unaffected by any peculiarities of
probability or testimony which may distinguish one
miraculous narrative from another. If the progress
of physical or metaphysical science has shown be-
yond the possibility of reasonable doubt that miracles
are impossible — if, as seems to be the tendency of a
recent argument, the assertion of a miracle is now
known to be as absurd as the assertion that two and
two make five* — it is idle to attempt a comparison be-
tween greater or less degrees of probability or testi-
mony. The preceding observations will in that case
only serve to show what it is that we have to surrender,
and to rescue the inquiry from the particular fallacy
which seeks to underrate its importance by represent-
ing it as only affecting the accidents and excrescences
of Christianity. Let us, at the outset, be clearly con-

* See 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 141. It is astonishing that this acute
author should not have seen the absurdity of introducing this statement in
connection with testimony. No witness could possibly see two and two
make five, or four, or any number, in the abstract ; he must see it in connec-
tion with certain visible objects. Put the- case in its only possible form : —
let a man say that he had seen two balls and then two more, put together,
and five balls produced from them ; and, instead of an impossibility, we have
but the commonest of jugglers' tricks.

2Q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

vinced of the vital importance of the question, in order
that we may enter on its examination prepared, if ne-
cessary, to sacrifice our most valued convictions at the
demand of truth, but, at the same time, so convinced
of their value as to be jealous of sacrificing them to
anything but truth.

9. The inquiry concerning the possibility of mira-
cles in general (as distinguished from that which con-
cerns the credibility of the Scripture miracles in par-
ticular) involves two distinct questions, which must be
considered separately from each other. The first of
these questions relates to the position occupied by mira-
cles with reference to experience and to the empirical
laws of matter ; the second relates to their position
with reference to philosophical conceptions of God's
nature and attributes. It is indispensable to a clear
understanding of the subject that these two questions
should be kept apart from each other ; though it will
be necessary, in discussing the first, to take for granted
some conclusions which will afterwards have to be
established in connection with the second. Let us then
assume, for the present, that we are justified in con-
ceiving God as a Person, and in speaking of His na-
ture and operations in the language which we should
employ in describing the analogous qualities and
actions of men. We shall speak, as theists in general
are accustomed to speak, of the will, and the jWjpose,
and the design of God ; of the contrast between His
general and special providence ; of His government of
the world and control over its laws ; reserving for a
subsequent inquiry the vindication of these and similar
expressions from a philosophical point of view.

10. The argument which denies the possibility of
miracles, on the ground of the uniformity of nature,
may be considered under two heads : first, as regards
the general conception of a system of natural laws ;
and, secondly, as regards the special experience of the
mode in which those laws are manifested. The former
may be fairly stated in the words of Hume, whose rea-
soning has received no substantial addition from the

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 21

labours of subsequent writers on the same side : " A
miracle is a violation of the laws of nature ; and as a
firm and unalterable experience has established these
laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature
of the fact, is as entire as any argument from ex-
perience can possibly be imagined."* The argument,
as thus stated, was just as strong or just as weak at the
day when it was written as at the present time : it has
received no additional strength from the progress of
science during the interval, — indeed it is hard to see
how the evidence of " a firm and unalterable ex-
perience," if such existed at any time, is capable of
being made stronger. No scientific man in the last
century had any doubt that the sensible phenomena
which came under his own experience and that of
his contemporaries were owing to some natural cause
acting by some natural law, whether the actual cause
and law were known or unknown. The nature of this con-
viction is not altered by any subsequent increase in the
number of known as compared with unknown causes : the
general conception of " a firm and unalterable ex-
perience " is wide enough to contain all discoveries
anticipated in the future, as well as those already
made.

11. In one respect, indeed, the advance of physical
science tends to strengthen rather than to weaken our
conviction of the supernatural character of the Christian
miracles. In whatever proportion our knowledge of
physical causation is limited, and the number of un-
known natural agents comparatively large, in the same
proportion is the probability that some of these un-
known causes, acting in some unknown manner, may
have given rise to the alleged marvels. But this prob-
ability diminishes when each newly-discovered agent,
as its properties become known, is shown to be inade-
quate to the production of the supposed effects, and as
the residue of unknown causes, which might produce
them, becomes smaller and smaller. We are told, indeed,

* ' Philosophical Works,' vol. iv., p. 103.

22

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay

that " the inevitable progress of research must, within a
longer or shorter period, unravel all that seems most
marvellous ;" * but we may be permitted to doubt the
relevancy of this remark to the present case, until it
has been shown that the advance of science has in
some degree enabled men to perform the miracles
performed by Christ. When the inevitable progress
of research shall have enabled men of modern times
to give sight to the blind with a touch, to still tempests
with a word, to raise the dead to life, to die themselves,
and to rise again, we may allow that the same causes
might possibly have been called into operation, two
thousand years earlier, by some great man in advance
of his age. But until this is done, the unravelling of
the marvellous in other phenomena only serves to leave
these mighty works in their solitary grandeur, as
wrought by the finger of God, unapproached and un-
approachable by all the knowledge and all the power
of man.

12. We have already observed that there is one
kind of testimony which can reach to the supernatural ;
namely, the testimony of the person who himself per-
forms the work ; and we may now add that the fact of
the work being done by human agency places it, as
regards the future progress of science, in a totally
different class from mere physical phenomena. The
appearance of a comet, or the fall of an aerolite, may
be reduced by the advance of science from a supposed
supernatural to a natural occurrence ; and this re-
duction furnishes a reasonable presumption that other
phenomena of a like character will in time meet with a
like explanation. But the reverse is the case with re-
spect to those phenomena which are narrated as
having been produced by personal agency. In propor-
tion as the science of to-day surpasses that of former
generations, so is the improbability that any man could
have done in past times, by natural means, works
which no skill of the present age is able to imitate.

* 'Essays and Kcvicws,' p. 10fJ.

Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. 23

The two classes of phenomena rest in fact on exactly
opposite foundations. In order that natural occurrences,
taking place without human agency, may wear the
appearance of prodigies, it is necessary that the cause
and manner of their production should be unknown :
and every advance of science from the unknown to the
known tends to lessen the number of such prodigies by
referring them to natural causes, and increases the
probability of a similar explanation of the remainder.
±>ut on the other hand, in order that a man may per-
form marvellous acts by natural means, it is necessary
that the cause and manner of their production should
be known by the performer; and in this case every
fresh advance of science from the unknown to the
known diminishes, the probability that what is un-
known now could have been known in a former age.
13. The effect therefore of scientific progress, as
regards the Scriptural miracles, is gradually to elimin-
ate the hypothesis which refers them to unknown
natural causes, and to reduce the question to the follow-
ing alternative : Either the recorded acts were not
performed at all (in wThich case it is idle to talk of the
probable "honesty or veracity" of the witnesses *) or
they were performed, as their authors themselves de-
clare, by virtue of a supernatural power, consciously
exercised for that very purpose. The intermediate
theory, which attempts to explain them as distorted
statements of events reducible to Jmoi/m natural causes,
has been tried already, in the scheme of Paulus, and
has failed so utterly as to preclude all expectation of
its revival, even in the land of its birth. There re-
mains only the choice between a deeper faith and a
bolder unbelief; between accepting the sacred narra-
tive as a true account of miracles actually performed,
and rejecting it as wholly fictitious and incredible;
whether the fiction be attributed to the gradual accre-
tion of mythical elements, or (for a later criticism has
come back again to the older and more intelligible

* See ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 10G.

24 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay I.

theory*) to the conscious fabrication of a wilful
impostor.

14. The argument of Hume, which may be taken
as the representative of all those which rest merely on
the general conception of laws of nature, was refuted
long ago by one who wrote as the advocate of his
teaching in some other respects.f A miracle is not
"a violation of the laws of nature," in any sense in
which such a violation is impossible or inconceivable.
It is simply the introduction of a new agent, possessing
new powers, and therefore not included under the rules
generalized from a previous experience. Its miracu-
lous character, distinguishing it from mere new dis-
coveries in nature, consists in the fact that the powers
in question are supposed to be introduced for a special
purpose, and to be withdrawn again when that purpose
is accomplished, and thus to be excluded from the
field of future observation and investigation. But the
supposition of such powers need not "imply any viola-
tion of the present laws observed by present natural
agents. The laws of nature, in the only sense of the
phrase which is relevant to the present argument, are
simply general statements concerning the powers and
properties of certain classes of objects which have
come under our observation. They say nothing about
the powers and properties of other objects or classes
of objects which have not been observed, or which
have been observed with a different result. There are
laws, for instance, of one class of material agents
which do not apply to another ; and there are laws of
matter in general which are not applicable to mind ;
and so there may be other orders of beings of which
we have no knowledge, the laws of whose action may
be different from all that we know of mind or body.
A violation of the laws of nature, in this sense of the

* In this way the mythical theory of Strauss, after having overthrown the
naturalistic theory of Paulus, has itself in turn been subjected to the criti-
cism of Bruno Bauer, who rejects the hypothesis of a traditional origin of the
Gospels, in favour of that which ascribes ihem to deliberate fabrication.

t See Brown on Cause and Effect, Note E. I have borrowed the leading
idea of Brown's argument, though dissenting from some of his details, and
therefore unable to adopt his exact language.

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. r>5

expression, would take place if, in two cases in which
the cause or antecedent fact were exactly the same, the
effect or consequent fact were different. But no such
irregularity is asserted by the believer in miracles.
He does not assert that miracles are produced by the
abnormal action of natural and known causes — on the
contrary, he expressly maintains that they are pro-
duced by a special interposition of Divine Power; and
that such an interposition, constituting in itself a dif-
ferent cause, may reasonably be expected to be follow-
ed by a different effect,

15. So far then as a miracle is regarded as the
operation of a special cause, producing a special effect,
it offers no antagonism to that general uniformity of
nature, according to which the same effects will always
follow from the same causes. The opposition between
science and miracle, if any exist, must be sought in
another quarter ; namely, in the assumption (provided
that such an assumption is warranted by science) that
the introduction of a special cause is itself incredible.
The ground of such an assumption appears to lie in
the hypothesis that the existing forces of nature are so
mutually related to each other that no new power can
be introduced without either disturbing the whole
equilibrium of the universe, or involving a series of
miracles, coextensive with the universe, to counteract
such disturbance. This seems to be the meaning of
the following observation by a recent writer: — "In an
age of physical research like the present, all highly
cultivated minds and duly advanced intellects have
imbibed, more or less, the lessons of the inductive
philosophy, and have at least in some measure learned
to appreciate the grand foundation conception of
universal law — to recognise the impossibility even of
any two material atoms subsisting together without a
determinate relation — of any action of the one or the
other, whether of equilibrium or of motion, without
reference to a physical cause — of any modification
whatsoever in the existing conditions of material
agents, unless through the invariable operation of a
2

Qq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

series of eternally impressed consequences^ following
in some necessary chain of orderly connexion — how-
ever imperfectly known to us."*

This operation of a series of eternally impressed con-
sequences could hardly be described more graphically
or forcibly than in the following words of a great Ger-
man philosopher: — "Let us imagine, for instance, this
grain of sand lying some few feet further inland than it
actually does. Then must the stormwind that drove it
in from the sea-shore have been stronger than it actually
was. Then must the preceding state of the atmosphere^
by which this wind was occasioned and its degree of
strength determined, have been different from what it
actually was ; and the previous changes which gave rise
to this particular weather ; and so on. We must sup-
pose a different temperature from that wdiich really ex-
isted, and a different constitution of the bodies which
influenced this temperature. The fertility or barrenness
of countries, the duration of the life of man, depend,
unquestionably, in a great degree, on temperature. How
can you know — since it is not given us to penetrate
the arcana of nature, and it is therefore allowable to
speak of possibilities — how can you know that in such
a state of the weather as we have been supposing, in
order to carry this grain of sand a few yards further, some
ancestor of yours might not have perished from hunger,
or cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son from
whom you are descended ; that thus you might never
have been at all ; and all that you have ever done, and
all that you ever hope to do in this wTorld, must have
been hindered, in order that a grain of sand might lie
in a different place ?"f

* 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 133.

f Fichte, ' Die Bestimmung des Menschen,' Werke, ii., p. 178. For the
translation I am indebted to an excellent American work, which deserves to
be better known in this country, and to which I take this opportunity of ex-
pressing my own obligations—' The Principles of Metaphysical and Ethical
Science,' by my friend'Professor Bowen, of Harvard College.

Schleiermacher ( « Dcr Christliche Glaube,' § 47, p. 260) expresses in
general terms, and with express reference to miracles, the same view which
Fichte has exhibited by an instance in relation to necessity in general. "A
miracle," he says, " has a positive relation, by which it extends to all that is
future, and a negative relation, whieh in a certain sense affects all that is
past, 'in so far as that does not follow which would have followed according
to the natural connection of the aggregate of finite causes, in so far an effect

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 07

16. Without attempting to criticise the argument
as thus eloquently stated, let us make one alteration in
the circumstances supposed — an alteration necessary to
make it relevant to the present question. Let us suppose
that the grain of sand, instead of being carried to its pres-
ent position by the wind, has been placed there by a man.
Is the student of physical science prepared to enumerate
a similar chain of material antecedents, which must have
been other than they were, before the man could have
chosen to deposit the grain of sand on any other spot
than that on which it is now lying? Such a conclusion
has indeed been maintained in general terms, without
any specification of antecedents, by the advocates of
Fatalism ; and it is maintained in the continuation of
the passage from which the above extract is taken.*
Bat the question is, not whether such a conclusion has
been asserted, as many other absurdities have been
asserted, by the advocates of a theory ; f but whether it
has been established on such scientific grounds as to be
entitled to the assent of all duly cultivated minds,
whatever their own consciousness may say to the con-
trary, f The most rigid prevalence of law and necessary

is hindered, not by the influence of other natural counteracting causes be-
longing to the same series, but notwithstanding the concurrence of all effec-
tive causes to the production of the effect. Everything, therefore, which
from all past time contributed to this effect is in a certain measure annihilat-
ed; and instead of the interpolation of a single supernatural agent into the
course of nature, the whole conception of nature is destroyed. On the posi-
tive side, something takes place which is conceived as incapable of following
from the aggregate of finite causes. But, inasmuch as this event itself now
becomes an actual link in the chain of nature, every future event must be
other than it would have been had this one miracle not taken place. Every
miracle thus not only destroys the original order of nature forever after; but
each later miracle destroys the earlier ones, so far as these have become parts
of the series of effective causes." The whole argument, as Rothe has ob-
served, rests on the assumption of absolute determinism.

* Not however as the author's own conclusion ; but as one of two con-
flicting doubts, to be afterwards resolved.

t " Nihil tarn absurde did potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosopho-
rum." — Cicero, De Divinatione, ii., 58.

% An attempt has recently been made to prove the non-existence of free
will, by means of statistical calculations, showing an average uniformity in
the recurrence of certain actions in certain periods of time. The resemblance,
however, between statistical averages and natural laws fails at the very point
on which the whole *vreight of the argument rests. A natural law is valid for
a class of objects, only because and in so far as it is valid for each individual
of that class : the law of gravitation, for instance, is exhibited in a single
apple as much as in an orchard; and is concluded of the latter from being

2S AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

sequence among purely material phenomena may be ad-
mitted without apprehension by the firmest believer in
miracles, so long as that sequence is so interpreted as
to leave room for a power indispensable to all moral
obligations and to all religious belief — the power of Free
Will in man.

Deny the existence of a freewill in man ; and neither
the possibility of miracles, nor any other question of
religion or morality, isworth contending about. Admit
the existence of a free will in man ; and we have the
experience of a power, analogous, however inferior, to
that which is supposed to operate in the production of
a miracle, and forming the basis of a legitimate argu-
ment from the less to the greater. * In the Will of man
we have the solitary instance of an Efficient Cause in
the highest sense of the term, acting among and along
with the physical causes of the material world, and
producing results which would not have been brought
about by any invariable sequence of physical causes
left to their own action. We have evidence, also, of
an elasticity, so to speak, in the constitution of nature,
which permits the influence of human power on the phe-
nomena of the world to be exercised or suspended at will,
without affecting the stability of the whole. We have
thus a precedent for allowing the possibility of a sim-
ilar interference of a higher will on a grander scale,
provided for by a similar elasticity of the matter sub-
jected to its influence. Such interferences, whether
produced by human or by superhuman will, are not con-
trary to the laws of matter ; but neither are they the re-
sult of those laws. They are the work of an agent who
is independent of the laws, and who, therefore, neither
obeys them nor disobeys them.f If a man, of his own
free will, throws a stone into the air, the motion of the
stone, as soon as it has left his hand, is determined by a

observed in the former. But the uniformity represented by statistical aver-
ages is one which is observed in masses only, and not in individuals ; and
hence the law, if law it be, which such averages indicate, is one which offers
no bar to the existence of individual freedom, exercised, as all human power
must be exercised, within certain limits.

* Compare Twesten, ' Vorlcsungen ueber die Dogmatik,' ii., p. 171.

t See Rothe, in 'Studien und Kritiken,' 1853, p. 33.

Essay L] ON MIRACLES. 29

combination of purely material laws ; partly by the
attraction of the earth; partly by the resistance of the
air; partly by the magnitude and direction of the force
by which it was thrown. But by what law came it to
be thrown at all? What law brought about the cir-
cumstances though which the aforesaid combination of
material laws came into operation on this particular
occasion and in this particular manner? The law of
gravitation, no doubt, remains constant and unbroken,
whether the stone is lying on the ground or moving
through the air ; but neither the law of gravitation, nor
all the laws of matter put together, could have brought
about this particular result, without the interposition
of the free will of the man who throws the stone. Sub-
stitute the will of God for the will of man; and the
argument, which in the above instance is limited to the
narrow sphere within which man's power can be exer-
cised, becomes applicable to the whole extent of creation,
and to all the phenomena which it embraces.

17. The fundamental conception, which is indispen-
sable to a true apprehension of the nature of a miracle,
is that of the distinction of Mind from Matter, and of
the power of the former, as a personal, conscious, and free
agent, to influence the phenomena of the latter. We are
conscious of this power in ourselves ; we experience it in
our everyday life ; but we experience also its restriction
within certain narrow limits, the principal one being that
man's influence upon foreign bodies is only possible
through the instrumentality of his own body.* Be-
yond these limits is the region of the miraculous. In
at least the great majority of the miracles recorded
in Scripture, the supernatural element appears, not in
the relation of matter to matter, but in that of matter
to mind ; in the exercise of a personal power tran-
scending the limits of man's will. They are not so much
sujpermaterial as stqjerhuman. Miracles, as evidences of
religion, are connected with a teacher of that religion ;
and their evidential character consists in the witness
which they bear to him as " a man approved of God

* Twesten, ' Vorlesungen ueber die Dogmatik,' i. p. 368.

30 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay!

by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did bjr
him." He may make use of natural agents, acting by
their own laws, or he may not : on this question various
conjectures may be hazarded, more or less plausible.
The miracle consists in his making use of them, so far
as he does so, under circumstances which no human
skill could bring about. When a sick man is healed,
or a tempest stilled, by a word, the mere action of
matter upon matter may possibly be similar to that
which takes place when the same effects occur in a
natural way: the miracle consists in the means by which
that action is brought about. And those means, we
are assured by the word of the Teacher himself, are
nothing less than the power of God, vouchsafed for the
express purpose of bearing witness that God has sent
him. Is it more reasonable, taking the whole evidence
into account, to believe his word ; or to suppose, either
that the works were not done at all, or that they were
done by a scientific deception ? This is the real ques-
tion to be decided.

If, indeed, we include, under the term nature, all
that is potential, as well as all that is actual, in the con-
stitution of the world — all that can be brought about
in it by divine power, as well as all that is brought
about in it by physical causes, — in such an extended
sense of the term, a miracle, like any other occurrence,
may be included within the province of nature. We
may, doubtless, believe that God from the beginning,
so ordered the constitution of the world as to leave room
for the exercise of those miraculous powers which He
foresaw would at a certain time be exercised; just as
He has left similar room for the exercise, within nar-
rower limits, of the human will. In this sense, some
of the scholastic divines maintained, with reason, that a
miracle is contrary to nature only in so far as nature is
regarded as an active manifestation, not in so far as it
is regarded as a passive recipient of power.* If this

* This is clearly expressed in the language of Alexander ab Ales, ' Summa,'
p. ii., qu. xlii., numb, v., art. 5 : — " Est enirn potentia activa, et est potentia
susceptiva, et est potentia aptata et potentia non aptata. Et est potentia ac-
tiva tarn naturae inferioris quam superioris ; susceptiva autem naturae infe-
rioris. Et verum est quod quicquid est Deo possibile secundum potentiam

Essay I.] ON MIEACLE3.

31

distinction is once clearly understood, the question,
whether miracles may be represented as the result of
law, or not, is a mere verbal question, which is only
important from its liability to be mistaken for a real
one. Properly speaking, a natural effect is not produced
by a law, but by an agent acting according to a law.
Every natural phenomenon has its physical cause in
some antecedent natural phenomenon which it regularly
follows ; and the laws of nature, are merely classifica-
tions of some of these sequences with others of a simi-
lar character;* or, as they have been aptly called,
" the uniformities which exist among natural phenom-
ena, when reduced to their simplest expression." f In
this sense, miracles cannot be referred to a natural law,
known or unknown ; for they do not resemble any se-
quence of one sensible phenomenon from another ; nor
can any sensible phenomenon or group of phenomena
be pointed out, or even supposed to exist, the occurrence
of which would be invariably followed by such results.
But if the term law be used in a different sense, to de-
note a method or plan conceived in the mind of an
intelligent Being ; and if, by referring miracles to a
law, no more is meant than that they, like other events,
formed part of God's purpose from the beginning, and
were the result, not of sudden caprice, but of a pre-
ordained plan, by which provision was made for them,
that they should be wrought at their proper time and
place without disturbing the economy of the universe,
— such an expression, allowing for the necessary imper-
fection of all human terms when applied to divine
things, is perhaps the most true and reverent conception

activam, est natura? possibile, non simpliciter, sed secundum potentiam sus-
ceptivam ; et hoc est dicta possibilitas ; sed non secundum activam potentiam,
nee secundum aptatam." A similar view is held by Albertus Magnus, ' Sum-
ma,' p. ii., tract viii., qu. xxxi.; and by Aquinas, in 1 Sent., dist. xlii., qu.
ii., art. 2. See also Neander, ' Church History,' vol. viii., p. 161, Eng. tr. ed.
Bohn.

* " No further insight into why the apple falls is acquired by saying it is
forced to fall, or it falls by the force of gravitation : by the latter expression
we are enabled to relate it most usefully to other phenomena ; but we still
know no more of the particular phenomena than that under certain circum-
stances the apple does fall." — Grove on the Correlation of Physical Forces, p.
18, 3rd edition. + Mill's ' Logic,' vol. i., p. 385.

32 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I

of these events which we are capable of funning during
this present life ; though, like other analogies trans-
ferred from the human mind to the Divine, it is the
object rather of religious belief than of philosophical
speculation.

18. Oar argument has hitherto proceeded on the
assumption that we are justified in regarding the visi-
ble world as under the government of a personal God,
and in speaking of His acts and purposes in language
which implies an analogy between the Divine mind
and the human. It now becomes necessary to make
some remarks in vindication of the assumption itself,
which has been included by recent criticism in the
same condemnation with the consequences which we
have endeavoured to deduce from it. Of the argument
from design, "as popularly pursued," we are told that
it " proceeds on the analogy of a personal agent, whose
contrivances are limited by the conditions of the case
and the nature of his materials, and pursued by steps
corresponding to those of human plans and operations:
— an argument leading only to the most unworthy and
anthropomorphic conceptions.* We are told, again, that
" to attempt to reason from law to volition, from order to
active power, from universal reason to distinct personal-
ity, from design to self-existence, from intelligence to in-
finite perfection, is in reality to adopt grounds of argu-
ment and speculation entirely beyond those of strict
philosophical inference." f We are told, again, that
"the simple argument from the invariable order of na-

* Powell, ■ Order of Nature,' p. 237. It is natural to turn to this more
elaborate work, published but a short time before the ' Essays aud Reviews,'
as the most probable source from which to complete or explain anything
which seems defective or obscure in the author's contribution to the latter
volume. At the same time it is but just to call attention to some indications
of a very different and a far truer view, in an earlier work by the same
writer ; as in the following passage, which I venture to cite, though unable
to reconcile it with his latter language : — " It is by analogy with the exercise
of intellect, and the volition, or power of moral causation, of which we are
conscious within ourselves, that we speak of the Supreme Mind, and Moral
Cause of the universe, of whose operation, order, arrangement, and adapta-
tion are the external manifestations. Order implies what by analogy we call
intelligence: subserviency to an observed end implies intelligencc/ommV?^,
which, by analogy, we call design." — On the Spirit of the Inductive Fhilos-
pphy, p. 160.

+ Powell, ' Order of Nature/ p. 244.

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 33

ture is wholly incompetent to give us any conception
whatever of the Divine Omnipotence, except, as main-
taining, or acting through, that invariable universal sys-
tem of physical order and law;" and that "a theism of
Omnipotence in any sense deviating from the order of
nature must be entirely derived from other teaching."*
In order to test the value of these and similar arguments,
it will be necessary that we should clearly understand
what this other teaching is, and what it teaches us ; as
well as the relation in which it stands to the general-
izations and inductions of physical science.

In examining this question, we are not directly con-
cerned with the higher inquiry regarding the degree
and character of man's knowledge of God, as a whole
and from whatever source derived, in its relation to
the absolute essence of its Divine Object, and to
the necessary limits of man's faculties. The diffi-
culties connected with metaphysical theories of the Ab-
solute and Infinite, which have driven so many specu-
lative minds into the extravagances of Pantheism, do
not affect our present argument. How any relation
between the infinite and the finite can be conceived as
existing ; — how God can be contemplated as acting in
time at all, whether in connection with the phenomena
of the material world, or with the thoughts and feelings
of men: — questions of this kind are equally applicable
to every positive conception of Divine Providence wdiich
we are capable of forming, and have no direct bear-
ing on the peculiar claims of one class of such concep-
tions as compared with another. The general answer
to such difficulties is to be found in the confession of
our ignorance as regards the mystery from which they
spring and on which their solution depends ; but this
ignorance, arising as it does from the universal limits
of human thought, has no special relation to one age
or state of man's knowledge, more than to another, and
is not removed by any advance in those departments
which fall within his legitimate field. Pantheistic
speculation has flourished with much the same result,

* Powell, ' Order of Nature,' p. 2-17.
2*

34 AIDS TO FAITH. [Esbat L

or want of result, in the earliest and in the latest clays
of philosophy, in ancient India and in modern Ger-
many ; and if any advance is to be expected in relation
to the questions with which such speculation deals, it
is probably to be looked for, not in the fuller solution
of the questions themselves, but in the clearer appre-
hension of the reasons why they are insoluble.

The question now before us is of another character.
It relates to that knowledge of God which, be it more
or less philosophically perfect, is that which practically
determines the thoughts and feelings and actions of the
majority of mankind; being connected with facts of
their daily experience, and with ideas intimately asso-
ciated with those facts. And the form in which it
meets us at present may be expressed as follows : — Is
the truest and highest conception of God to which man
can practically attain with his present faculties that
which is suggested by the observation of Law and
Order, as existing in the material world ? or is there a
higher conception, derived from a different class of ob-
jects, by which the errors of an exclusively physical
theology may be discovered and corrected ?

19. Keduced to its simplest terms the question really
stands thus : — Is Matter or Mind the truer image of
God ? "We are told indeed, "that the study of physical
causes is the sole real clue to the conception of a moral
cause ; and that physical order, so far from being op-
posed to the idea of supreme intelligence, is the very
exponent of it." * We are referred to "the grand con-
templation of cosmical order and unity " as furnishing
"proofs of the ever-present mind and reason in nature ;"f
but we have yet to learn what is the exact process by
which the desired conclusion is elicited from the prem-
ises.

20. In opposition to these statements I do not hesi-
tate to repeat, with a very slight modification, the
words of Sir William Hamilton, " that the class of
phenomena which requires that kind of cause we de-
nominate a Deity is exclusively given in the phenom-

* Powell, ' Order of Nature,' p. 235. t Ibid., p. 238.

Ess at I.] ON MIKACLES. 35

ena of mind ; that the phenomena of matter, taken by
themselves (you will observe the qualification — taken
by themselves), do not warrant any inference to the
existence of a God."* The argument which would de-
duce the conception of God solely from physical causa-
tion bears witness, in the very words in which it is
announced, to its own imperfection. The very names
of law, and order, and cause, had a literal before they
had a figurative meaning, and are borrowed, in com-
mon with the whole phraseology of causation, by the
sciences of invariable succession, from those of moral
action and obligation. We discern Law as Law, solely
by means of the personal consciousness of duty • we
gain the conception, not by the external observation of
what is, but by the internal apprehension of ivhat ought
to he. We discern Causation, as Causation, solely in
and by the productive energy of the personal will, —
the one solitary fact of human experience in which is
presented the consciousness of effort, — oijpower in action,
exerting itself to the production of an effect. We dis-
cern Order, as Order, only in so far as we conceive the
many as constituting the One, — the varied phenomena
of sense as combined into a single whole; and the ideas
of Unity and totality are given only in the personal con-
sciousness,— in the immediate perception of the one
indivisible Self, and its several modes of conscious ex-
istence.f What do we mean when we speak of the
Order of Nature as implying a presiding Mind ? The
language is unintelligible save as interpreted by what
the personal consciousness tells us of our own mind and
its control over the objects that are under its dominion.
In the little world of man's thought and its objects,
that Order, that System from which the Cosmos derives
its name, — that Unity which binds together the diverse
elements into a consistent whole, — is the factor contrib-

* ' Lectures on Metaphysics,' vol. i., p. 26.

t " Le moi est la seule unite qui nous soit donnee immediatement par la
nature ; nous ne la rencontrons dans aucune des choses que nos facultes ob-
servent. Mais l'entendement, qui la trouve en lui, la met hors de lui par in-
duction, et d'un certain nombre des choses coexistantes il cree des unites
ratificielles." — Boyer-Collard, in Jouffroy's translation of Eeid, vol. iv.,
p. 350.

2Q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I.

utecl by the mind to its objects, — the product of Intelli-
gence, comprehending, arranging, generalizing, classi-
fying. Without this" action of mind upon its objects,
the little world of each man's knowledge would be, not
a Cosmos, but a Chaos, — not a system of parts in
mutual relation to each other, but an endless succession
of isolated phantoms coming and going one by one. It
is from this little world of our own consciousness, with
its many objects, marshalled in their array under the.
rule of the one conscious Mind, that we are led to the
thought of the great universe beyond, — that we con-
ceive this also as a world of Order, and as being such
by virtue of its relation to an ordering and presiding
Mind. Design, Purpose, Kelation of parts to a whole,
of means to an end, — these conceptions borrowed from
the world of mind, can alone give order and unity to
tlie world of matter, by representing it as moulded and
governed by a ruling and purposing Mind, the centre
and the source of that relation which mind does not
take from matter, but confers upon it. Through this
alone can Chaos be conceived as Cosmos ; through this
alone can the Many point to the One.

21. But this is not all. The very conception of a
Design in creation implies the existence of a Free Will
in the Designer. If man were not conscious of a free
will in himself, he could frame no designs, he could con-
ceive no purposes of his own ; and without the assump-
tion of an analogous Divine Will, there is no meaning in
his language when he speaks of the Design or Purpose of
God. But in conceiving God as a free agent, we neces-
sarily conceive Him as a Person ; and this conception
places Him in a totally different light from that of a mere
soul of the world, or intelligence manifested in a system
of material phenomena. In conceiving God as a Person,
we conceive Him as standing in a direct relation to that
one object in the world which is most nearly akin to
Himself, — the personal soul of man, by whom He is so
conceived. The personality, and, as implied in the
personality, the moral nature of God, is not, as it has
sometimes been represented, an isolated conception,

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 37

derived from a distinct class of facts, and superadded
to another conception of a Deity derived from the order
of nature :* it is the primary and fundamental idea of
a God in any distinctive sense of the word, — an idea
without which no religion and no theology, no feeling
of a spiritual relation between God and man, and no
conception of a mind superior to nature, can have any
existence. To speak, in the language of modern pan-
theistic philosophy, of a Reason or Thought in the uni-
verse, which first becomes conscious in man, is simply
to use terms without a meaning ; for we have no con-
ception of reason or thought at all, except as a con-
sciousness. And to speak, on the side of physical
philosophy, of a Supreme Mind, evinced in the laws
of matter, is, in like manner, to use terms which have
no meaning until we have acquired a conception of
what mind is from the consciousness of the mind
within ourselves. Our primary religious consciousness
is that of man's relation to God as a person to a per-
son ; and, unless we begin with this and retain it in
our knowledge, the very name of God is unmeaning.
If this be Anthropomorphism, it is, as Jacobi has said,
an Anthropomorphism identical with Theism, and with-
out which there remains nothing but Atheism or Fe-
tichism.f

22. The following quotation from the same eloquent
and profound philosopher is probably already familiar
to many readers, but is too excellent in itself and too
appropriate to the present argument to be omitted.

* " At the utmost," says Professor Powell, "a physico-fheology can only
teach a supreme mind evinced in the laws of the world of matter, and the
relations of a Deity to physical things essentially as derived from physical
law. A moral or metaphysical theology (so far as it may be substantiated)
can only lead us to a Deity related to mind, or to the moral order of the
world." — Order of Nature, p. 245.

I consider this separation between two sources of theology as fundamen-
tally erroneous. I believe that man's conception of God as mind is primarily
derived from the personal consciousness alone; and that, however much it
may be enlarged by the contemplation of material objects, it does not origi-
nate from them, and can only be legitimately applied to them in and by its
primary characteristics of personality and a moral nature.

t " Wir bekennen uns demnach zu einem von der Ueberzeugung, dass
der Mensch Gottes Ebenbild in sich trage — unzertrennlichen Anthropomor-
phismus, und behaupten, ausser diesem Anthropomorphismus, der von jeher
Theismus genannt wurde, ist nur Gotteslaugmmg oder — FeticlmmusP — Von
den Gottlichen Dingen, Werke, iii., p. 422.

38

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat I.

" Nature conceals God ; for, through her whole do-
main, Nature reveals only fate, only an indissoluble
chain of mere efficient causes,* without beginning and
without end, excluding, with equal necessity, both
providence and chance. An independent agency, a
free original commencement, within her sphere and
proceeding from her powers, is absolutely impossible.
Working without will, she takes counsel neither of the~
good nor of the beautiful ; creating nothing, she casts
up from her dark abyss only eternal transformations of
herself, unconsciously and without an end ; furthering,
with the same ceaseless industry, decline and increase,
death and life, — never producing what alone is of God
and what supposes liberty, — the virtuous, the immortal.

"Man reveals God; for Man, by his intelligence,
rises above Nature, and, in virtue of this intelligence,
is conscious of himself as a power not only independent
of, but opposed to, Nature, and capable of resisting,
conquering, and controlling her. As man has a living
faith in this power, superior to nature, which dwells in
him, so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experience
of His existence. As he does not believe in this power,
so does he not believe in God ; he sees, he experiences
nought in existence but nature — necessity — fate."f

23. From the above principles it follows (to use the
words of Sir William Hamilton) " that the universe is
governed not only by physical but by moral laws ;"
and " that intelligence stands first in the absolute order
of existence — in other words, that final preceded effi-
cient causes.";): But this involves, as a consequence,
that the question concerning the possibility or proba-
bility of a miracle is to be judged, not merely from
physical, but also, and principally, from moral grounds ;

* The phrase efficient causes (wirkende TJrsachen), here and in a subse-
quent quotation from the translator, must be understood in a different sense
from that in which it is used by some modern writers, to denote meta-
physical as distinguished from physical causes— a sense adopted above, p.
28. For the two senses of the phrase, see especially a note in Stewart's
' Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers,' book iii., ch. ii., Collected
Works, vii., p. 27.

t Werke, iii., p. 425. Translated by Sir W. Hamilton, * Lectures on
Metaphysics,' vol. i., p. 40.

% • Lectures on Metaphysics,' vol. i., p. 28.

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 39

not merely from the evidence furnished by the phe-
nomena of the material world, but also from that fur-
nished by the religious nature of man, and by his rela-
tion to a God to whom that nature bears witness. It is
altogether an erroneous view to represent the question
between general law and special interposition as if it
rested on mechanical considerations only — as if it could
be judged by the difference between constructing a
machine which, when once made, can go on continu-
ously by its own power, and one which, at successive
periods, requires new adjustments.* The miracle is
not wrought for the sake of the physical nni verse, but
for the sake of the moral beings within it ; and the
question to be considered is not whether a divine inter-
position is needed to regulate the machinery of nature,
but whether it is needed or adapted to promote the re-
ligious welfare of men. If the spiritual restoration of
mankind has in any degree been promoted by means
of a religion professing to have been introduced by the
aid of miracles, and whose whole truth is involved in
the truth of that profession, we have a sufHcient reason
for the miraculous interposition, superior to any that
can be urged for or against it from considerations de-
rived from the material world. The very conception
of a revealed as distinguished from a natural religion
implies a manifestation of God different in kind from
that which is exhibited by the ordinary course of na-
ture ; and the question of the probability of a miracu-
lous interposition is simply that of the probability of
a revelation being given at all. In the words of Bishop
Butler, " Revelation itself is miraculous, and miracles
are the proof of it."f

24. As regards the general question of the pos-
sibility of miracles (that of their reality must of course
be determined by its own special evidence), Paley's
criticism is, after all, the true one : — " Once believe
that there is a God, and miracles are not incredible."

* This objection against miracles is urged by Voltaire, 'Dictionnaire
Philosophique,' v. 'Miracles,' and is answered by Bishop Van Mildert,
'Boyle Lectures,' Sermon xxi.

t ' Analogy,' part ii., ch. ii.

40 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat I.

For an impersonal God is no God at all ; and the con-
ception of a personal God in relation to man neces-
sarily involves that of a divine purpose, and of the
manifestation of that purpose in time. Grant this, and
there is no a priori reason why such a manifestation
may not take place at one time as well as at another ;
why the beginning of a spiritual system at one period
may not be as credible as the beginning of a material
system at another period. It would indeed be a pre-
carious argument to attempt to reason positively from
an a priori notion of the divine attributes to the neces-
sity of creation or of revelation ; but the very con-
ditions which render such an argument doubtful only
increase the force of the negative caution, which, re-
fusing to dogmatize on either side concerning what
must he or must not he, is content to seek for such evi-
dence as is within its reach concerning what is.

25. With the question of the j>ossibilif?j of miracles
is intimately connected that of their value as evidences.
Both questions, indeed, must ultimately be decided on
the same principle ; and the influence of that principle
is probably at work, though unconsciously, in the minds
of some who endeavour to regard the two inquiries as
wholly distinct. Sometimes, indeed, we find both
united, and apparently treated as parts of the same
argument on the side of denial; though it is ob-
vious that, if the impossibility of miracles'can once be
shown, there is no need of any inquiry into their com-
parative value. Nevertheless, as if the conclusiveness
of the former argument were, after all, somewhat
doubtful in the eyes of its advocates, we .find it
coupled with an attempt to disparage the value of the
miracles as evidences, even supposing their reality. It
is intimated that they are not so much evidences as
objects of faith, invested with sanctity and exempted
from criticism by virtue of the religious mysteries with
which they are connected : * and approved divines are
referred to as practical ly making the doctrine the real
test of the admissibility of the miracles, and as ac-

* See 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 143.

Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. 41

knowledging the right of an appeal, superior to that
of all miracles, to our own moral tribunal.'*' The feel-
ing which dictates this judgment is intelligible at least,
if not excusable, as the result of a reaction against the
opposite error of a former generation : but, when the
judgment is advanced, as it often is, not merely as an
expression of the personal feelings of an individual,
but as a general statement of the right grounds of be-
lief, it is at best nothing more than an attempt to cure
one evil by another, introducing a remedy, on the
whole, worse than the disease.

Some of the questions introduced in this connection
properly belong to an earlier stage of our argument ;
for though they have been treated by some writers as
bearing on the evidential value of miracles, supposing
their reality to be admitted, they more strictly relate
to the previous inquiry concerning the grounds on
which we believe miracles to have been wrought at
all. Thus the assertion that the Gospel miracles are
objects of faith is undoubtedly true ; but it is true in a
sense which is by no means incompatible with their
being also evidences.^ To us, in these latter days, as
regards the grounds on which we believe the miracles
to have taken place at all, they are "objects of faith"
in that proper sense of the term faith in which it is
opposed, not to reason, but to sight. \ We were not
eye-witnesses of the miracles : we know all that we
know about them from the testimony of others ; and
testimony of all kinds is an appeal to faith, as dis-
tinguished from sight, — -prcesentia videntur, crcdunhir
absentia.% But to say that miracles are in this sense
objects of faith, is a very different thing from making
them exempt from criticism by virtue of the religious
mysteries with which they are connected. The faith
which is called into exercise is only that which is re-

* 'Essays and Reviews,' pp. 121, 122.

t When it is asserted that the miracles are objects, not evidences, of
faith, it is obvious that the word faith is used in two different senses. In
relation to objects, it means an act 6f belief; in relation to evidences, it means
a doctrine to be believed.

% 2 Cor. v. 7, " We walk by faith, not by sight."

§ St. Augustine, Epist. cxlvii., c. 2.

42 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay L

quired in all admission of testimony, whether connect-
ed with religious mysteries or not ; which exists in all
cases in which we accept, on the authority of others,
statements which we are unable to verify by our own
experience.

26. The often-disputed question, whether the mira-
cles prove the doctrine, or the doctrine the miracles, is
also one which properly belongs to the earlier inquiry
concerning the credibility of the miracles as facts, and
which, like that of objects and evidences, derives a
seeming plausibility from an epigrammatic antithesis
of language covering a confusion of thought. There
are certain doctrines which must be taken into account
in determining the question whether a true miracle —
•i.e. an interposition of Divine poioer — has taken place
at all. If a teacher claiming to work miracles pro-
claims doctrines contradictory to previously establish-
ed truths, whether to the conclusions of natural re-
ligion or to the teaching of a former revelation, such a
contradiction is allowed, even by the most zealous de-
fenders of the evidential value of miracles, to invali-
date the authority of the teacher.* But the right con-
clusion from this admission is not that true miracles
are invalid as evidences, but that the supposed miracles
in this case are not true miracles at all ; i.e. are not the
effects of Divine power, but of human deception or of
some other agency. And the criterion, as has been
often observed, is only of a negative character ; con-
tradiction to known truth is sufficient to disprove a
Divine mission ; but conformity to known truth is not

* Thus Clarke ('Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion,' Prop, xiv.)
says, "If the doctrine attested by miracles be in itself impious, or manifestly
tending to promote vice, then without all question the miracles, how great
soever they may appear to us, are neither worked by God Himself nor by
His commission, because our natural knowledge of the attributes of God,
and of the necessary difference between good and evil, is greatly of more
force to prove any such doctrine to be false than any miracles in the world
can be to prove it true." But Clarke also shows that this admission is a very
different thing from making the doctrine the proof of the miracles ; that, on
the contrary, the miracles are the proof of the doctrine, provided that the
doctrine be such as is capable of being proved by miracles. See also, on the
same question, Bishop Sherlock, Discourse x. ; Penrose, ' On the Evidence
©f the Scripture Miracles,' p. 212.

I.] ON MIRACLES. 43

sufficient to establish one.* And even the negative
criterion, however valid as a general rule, is liable to
error in its special applications. The certainty of the
truths of natural religion does not guarantee the cer-
tainty of all the conclusions which this or that man
believes to be truths of natural religion, any more than
the infallibility of Scripture guarantees the infallibility
of every man's interpretation of Scripture. God can-
not contradict Himself, whether He teaches through
nature or through revelation ; but man may misinter-
pret God's teaching through the one as well as through
the other.

27. In regarding the doctrinal criterion as properly
relating to the question whether a true miracle has
been wrought at all, we set aside, as unworthy of seri-
ous consideration, the supposition which has sometimes
been advanced in favour of an opposite view ; namely,
that real miracles may possibly be performed by evil
spirits in behalf of a false doctrine. This supposition,
whatever may be its value as a theme for argumenta-
tive ingenuity, is not one which we are practically
called upon to consider by any of the actual circum-
stances with which we are concerned. The objections
which may justly be urged against Farmer's argument,
when carried to the extent of denying the credibility
of demoniacal miracles of any kind, do not apply to it
when limited to such miracles as are wrought in evi-
dence of a religion, and to the question, not of their
theoretical possibility, but of their actual occurrence.
It may be unsafe to reason a priori, from our concep-
tion of the Divine attributes, that the permission of
such agency is inconceivable ; but we may fairly re-
fuse to attach any practical importance to the supposi-
tion, until some evidence is brought forward to show

* Thus Bishop Atterbury, in his Sermon on 'Miracles the most proper
way of proving the Divine Authority of any Religion,' says, " Though the
badness of any doctrine, and its disagreeableness to the eternal rules of right
reason, be a certain sign that it did not come from God, yet the goodness of
it can be no infallible proof that it did." The same argument is handled in
Rogers's ' Sermons on the Necessity of Divine Revelation,' pp. GO, 109, ed.
1757. See also Warburton, 'Divine Legation,' b. ix., c. 5; Clarke, 'Evi-
dence,' Prop. ix.

44 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I

that it has actually been realized. It remains yet to be
shown that in all human experience any instance can
be produced of a real miracle wrought by evil spirits
for purposes of deception ;* and until some probable
grounds can be alleged in behalf of the fact, we have
not sufficient means of judging concerning the theory.
Doubtless, if it is consistent with God's Providence to
permit such a temptation, He will also, with the temp-
tation, make a way for us to escape ; but what that way
will be, or how far the temptation is consistent with
God's Providence, we cannot decide beforehand : we
must wait till some actual occurrence, with all its ac-
companying circumstances, comes before us. The only
real question at issue is not whether Christianity is a
revelation from God or a delusion of Satan ; — a ques-
tion which no sane man at the present time would,
think worthy of a serious discussion ; but whether it is
of God or of man ; and, consequently, on what grounds
and to what extent it is entitled to the acceptance of
mankind. What man has taught, man may revise and
improve. If the doctrines of Christianity are no other-
wise of divine origin than as all human wisdom is the
gift of God, they have, like other products of human
wisdom, no further claim to be accepted than as they
may be verified by the wisdom of later generations.
In that case, we may listen to the teaching of Christ
and His apostles as we listen to the teaching of human
philosophers, with respect and gratitude, but not neces-
sarily with submission : we claim a right to judge and
sift, and it may be to reject, as our own reason shall
determine us, acknowledging no other authority than
that which is due to the wise and good of every gener-
ation of mankind. But if, on the other hand, the doc-
trines are given to us by Divine revelation such as no
human wisdom can claim, they have a right to be re-
ceived by virtue of the authority on which they rest,
distinct from any which they may possess through their
own intrinsic reasonableness or capability of verifica-
tion. Of such a Divine authority miracles are the

* See Penrose, ' On the Evidence of the Scripture Miracles/ p. 23.

Essay I.] ON MIEACLES. 45

natural and proper proof; — a proof which all men are
disposed naturally and instinctively to admit in prac-
tice, "whatever cavils may be raised against it on the
ground of imaginary difficulties in theory. In the
words of one of the ablest of the writers who have dis-
cussed this point, "All natural scepticism on the sub-
ject of miracles attaches to the question whether they
wTere really performed, not, if performed, to the author-
ity which they possess."* For all real purposes of con-
troversy, the question may be stated now, as it was
stated by Gamaliel of old, whether the counsel and the
work be of man or of God ; and the only serious in-
quiry that can be raised concerning the miracles of
Scripture is whether they were wrought by the direct
interposition of God, or were the result of human skill
or other natural causes, — in other words, whether they
were or were not really miracles at all.

28. The question, then, only requires to be disen-
tangled of its confusion to be very briefly answered.
If it is considered theoretically and in the abstract
with reference merely to the logical character of cer-
tain doctrines in themselves, and not to the circum-
stances and needs of men, we may divide, as is usually
clone, the doctrines of religion into those which are and
those which are not discoverable by human reason ;
regarding the former as prior to revelation, and fur-
nishing a negative criterion which no true revelation
can contradict ; while the latter are posterior to reve-
lation, and rest immediately on the authority of a
divinely commissioned teacher, and mediately on the
proofs of his divine mission, whatever these may
be.f And it is at this stage of the inquiry that the
question concerning the evidential value of miracles
properly comes in. A teacher who proclaims himself
to be specially sent by God, and whose teaching is to
be received on the authority of that mission, must,
from the nature of the case, establish his claim by
proofs of another kind than those which merely evince
his human wTisdom or goodness. A superhuman au-

* Penrose, p. 2i. t Compare Warburton, ' Divine Legation,' b. ix., c. 5.

4Q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay L

thority needs to be substantiated by superhuman evi-
dence ; and what is superhuman is miraculous. It is
not the truth of the doctrines, but the authority of the
teacher, that miracles are employed to prove ; and the
authority being established, the truth of the doctrine
follows from it. In this manner our Lord appeals to
His miracles as evidences of his mission : " The works
which the Father hath given me to finish, the same
works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father
hath sent me."* It is easy to say that we might have
known Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, had He man-
ifested Himself merely as a moral teacher, without the
witness of miracles. It is easy to say this, because it
is impossible to prove it. We cannot reverse the facts
of history ; we cannot make the earthly life of Christ
other than it was. As a matter of fact He did unite
miraculous powers wTith pure and holy doctrine ; and,
as a matter of fact, He did appeal to His miracles in
proof of His divine authority. The miracles are a part
of the portrait of Christ ; they are a part of that in-
fluence which has made the history of the Christian
Church what it is. It is idle to speculate on what that
history might have been had that influence been differ-
ent. We have to do with revelation as we have to do
with nature, — as God has been pleased to make it, not
as He might have made it, had His wisdom been as
ours.

Such, even at its very lowest estimate, is the eviden-
tial character of miracles from the abstract and theo-
retical point of view. " The truths," says Bishop Atter-
bury, "which are necessary in this manner to be at-
tested are those which are of positive institution; those
which, if God had not pleased to reveal them, human
reason could not have discovered ; and those which,
even now they are revealed, human reason cannot fully
account for and perfectly comprehend. Such, for ex-
ample, are the doctrines of Baptism and the Supper of
the Lord, of the Resurrection of the same Body, of the
Distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Es-

* St. John v. 30.

Essay I.] ON MIKACLES. ^

sence, and of the Salvation of Mankind by the Blood
and Intercession of Jesus. It is this kind of truths that
God is properly said to reveal ; truths of which, unless
revealed, we should have always continued ignorant ;
and 'tis in order only to prove those truths to have
been really revealed, that we affirm miracles to be
necessary."*

29. But practically, in reference to the actual condi-
tion and needs of men, the evidence of miracles has
a far wider range, and includes all those doctrines,
whether natural or revealed, which have at any time
been taught or revived among men by the preaching
of the Christian Faith. This has been pointed out,
with his usual practical wisdom, by Bishop Butler.
" It is impossible," he says, " to say who would have
been able to have reasoned out that whole system which
we call natural religion, in its genuine simplicity, clear
of superstition ; but there is certainly no ground to
affirm that the generality could. If they could, there
is no sort of probability that they would. Admitting
there were, they would highly want a standing admo-
nition to remind them of it, and inculcate it upon
them." To the same effect ho continues: "It may
possibly be disputed how far miracles can prove nat-
ural religion ; and notable objections may be urged
against this proof of it, considered as a matter of spec-
ulation ; but, considered as a practical thing, there can
be none. For suppose a person to teach natural relig-
ion to a nation who had lived in total ignorance or
forgetfulness of it ; and to declare he was commissioned
by God to do so ; suppose him, in proof of his com-
mission, to foretell things future, which no human fore-
sight could have guessed at ; to divide the sea with a
word ; feed great multitudes with bread from heaven ;
cure all manner of diseases ; and raise the dead, even
himself, to life : would not this give additional credi-
bility to his teaching — a credibility beyond what that
of a common man would have ; and be an authorita-

* 'Miracles the proper way of proving the Divine Authority of any Relig-
ion,' Sermons (1734), vol. i. p. 215. See also Bishop Sherlock, Discourse x.

48

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay L

tive publication of the law of nature, i.e. a new proof
of it? It would be a practical one, of the strongest
kind, perhaps, which human creatures are capable of
having given them."*

In this passage, the good sense of Butler has solved
the question in its practical aspect, leaving die theo-
retical difficulty in its proper insignificance. No doubt,
if we are at liberty to suppose a totally different state of
tilings from the actual one, we may deduce a great
number of hypothetical consequences concerning what
might have been the case, but is not. If all men
possessed a perfect system of natural religion, no author-
itative publication of natural truth would be needed ;
and no teaching which contradicted men's natural belief
would have any claim to be received. And so, if all
men were possessed of perfect bodily health, no med-
icine would be needed to give it them ; and any medi-
cine which tended to alter their state of health would
be injurious. Unhappily, both suppositions are untrue
and the conclusions practically fall to the ground with
them. It may be granted that the authority of which
miracles are a proof is but an accidental and relative
evidence of truths of this character. Still, the accident
is one which has extended over the greater^ part of
mankind ; and the relation is coextensive with it. And
this consideration must serve to modify in practice the
negative criterion which is allowed to be valid in theory.
In whatever degree any man does not possess a perfect
natural religion, in the same degree he is liable to error
in judging of the truth of a revelation solely from
internal evidence. And even the man who, in the pres-
ent day, claims the right to exercise such a judgment,
may be reminded that the knowledge on which his
claim is based is in no small degree owing to that very
authoritative teaching on which his judgment is to be
passed : — aireXaKTiae fcaOairepel ra 7rco\dpia ^evvrjOevra
tt]v fjLrjrepa. " The fact," says Mr. Davison, "is not to
be denied ; the religion of Nature has had the opportu-

* 'Analogy,' part ii., ch. i.

Essay I] ON MIRACLES. 4q

nity of rekindling lier faded taper by the Gospel light,
whether furtively or unconsciously taken. Let her not
dissemble the obligation and the conveyance, and make
a boast of the splendour, as though it were originally
her own, or had always in her hands been sufficient for
the illumination of the world."*

30. The whole question of the value of miracles as
evidences of Christianity must, in fact, be answered by
means of the same distinction on which depends the
question of their credibility; — the distinction, namely,
between God's general manifestations of Himself in
the ordinary course of nature, and His special mani-
festation of Himself by supernatural signs. Those who
deny the existence of any special revelation of religious
truths, distinct from that general sense in which man's
reason itself and all that it can discover are the gifts of
Him from whom every good thing comes ; — those who
deny that any teaching has been made to man by
special inspiration of particular teachers, in a sense
different from that in which all holy desires, all good
counsels, and all just works proceed from the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit ; — such persons are only consistent
when they deny that miracles have any value as evi-
dences of religious truth, and are still more consistent
if they deny that such works have ever been wrought.
If religion teaches nothing but what every man, by
God's grace, may discover, or at least verify, for aimself,
the distinction between natural and revealed religion
ceases to exist, and with it the distinction between
natural and supernatural evidences of the truth. If the
ordinary witness of man's reason or conscience is
sufficient for all purposes of religion, the extraordinary
witness becomes superfluous if it agrees with this, and
pernicious if it differs from it. But this absolute
sufficiency of the natural reason is the very point which
history and philosophy concur to call in question.

31. The following words of a learned and thoughtful
prelate of the English Church may be cited and adopted

* 'Discourses on Prophecy,' p. G (4th edition).
3

5q AIDS TO FAITH. [Es3at I.

as expressing the conclusions which I have endeavour-
ed, however imperfectly, to establish in common with
him : " It appears, then, on a review of the preceding
arguments, that the Scripture miracles stand on a solid
basis, which no reasoning can overthrow. Their pos-
sibility cannot be denied without denying the very na-
ture of God as an all-powerful Being : their probability
cannot be questioned without questioning His moral
perfections : and their certainty, as matters of fact, can
only be invalidated by destroying the very foundations
of all human testimony.

" Upon these grounds we may safely leave the
subject in the hands of any wise and considerate man :
and we may venture to affirm that no person of such a
character will, after an attentive examination of these
points, ever suffer his faith in the miracles, by which
the Divine authority of the Christian revelation is
supported, to be shaken. Convinced that, by a fair
chain of reasoning, every one who denies them must be
driven to the necessity of maintaining atheistical prin-
ciples, by questioning either the power, or wisdom, or
goodness of the Creator, the true philosopher will yield
to the force of this consideration, as well as to the over-
powering evidences of the facts themselves ; and will
thankfully accept the dispensation which God hath
thus graciously vouchsafed to reveal. He will suffer
neither wit, nor ridicule, nor sophistry, to rob him of
this anchor of his faith; but will turn to his Saviour
with the confidence so emphatically expressed by
Nicodemus : ' Eabbi, we know that thou art a Teacher
come from God ; for no man can do these miracles
that Thou doest, except God be with him.' "*

To these remarks, which are applicable to every age
and race of men to whom the Christian evidences may
come, it may perhaps not be inappropriate to add a
farther observation having a more especial reference
to ourselves. The very attacks which have been made,
in the supposed interests of science, upon the miracu-

* Van Mildert, ' Boyle Lectures,' Sermon xsi.

Essay I.] ON MIRACLES. 51

lous element of the Gospel narrative, may themselves
serve, if rightly considered, to give to that very element
a new significance, and to point to a moral purpose
more discernible now than of old. An age of advanced
physical knowledge has its especial temptations, no less
than its especial privileges. Few indeed, it is trusted,
will be found to repeat what one great scientific teacher
of the present century has been found to assert, that
the heavens declare, not the glory of God, but only the
glory of the astronomer. Yet this bold and profane
language is only the extreme expression of a tendency
against which an age like the present has especial need
to watch and pray. Against such a tendency it is no
small safeguard that men of science should be trained
from their earliest childhood in records which at every
page tell of the personal presence of Him by whom all
things were made, manifested in direct control over the
delegated workings of His visible creation. It is but
one form of His perpetual presence with His Church,
that in founding a Faith destined to ally itself with the
intellectual cultivation of all succeeding generations,
He should have founded it in such a manner as to fur-
nish, in the record of its origin, a lesson of the spirit in
which that cultivation should be pursued, and a safe-
guard against the perils to which it is especially ex-
posed. If there are times when the very vastness of
the material system which science discloses seems to
thrust the Author of all to an almost infinite distance
from us ; — if there are times when we feel almost tempt-
ed to echo the wish of the poet, to be " a Pagan
suckled in a creed outworn," so that we might but
have a clearer sight of the presence of Deity among the
phenomena of nature ; — if there are times when the
heaven that is over our heads seems to be brass, and
the earth that is under us to be iron, and we feel our
hearts sink within us under the calm pressure of un-
yielding and unsympathizing Law, as those of the
disciples of old sank within them under the stormy vio-
lence of wind and wave ; — at such times we may learn
our lesson and feel our consolation, as we turn to those

52 AII)S TO FAITH. [Ess at I.

vivid pictures which our Sacred Story portrays of the
personal power of the Incarnate God visibly ruling His
creation; and may hear through them the present voice
of Him who spake on the waters, "Be of good cheer;
it is I ; be not afraid."

ESSAY II.

ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY II.

Introduction.

Reaction against the study of Evi-
dences.

Circumstances of the Infidel Contro-
versy in the 17th and lfath centu-
ries.

Change of position of Christian apolo-
gists occasioned by change of tactics
of Infidels.

Internal condition of the Church.

Eise of the Methodist and Evangeli-
cal movement — its excesses.

Want of Church activity.

The " New Birth " preached by
Whitfield and the Wesleys.

Decay of theological learning among
the Evangelical leaders.

Ultimate development of false princi-
ples when left unchecked.

Influences loosing men's hold upon the
Historical element in Christianity —
German Neology.

Charms of the foreign literature— In-
fluence of the new opinions on the
current literature of the country —
Religion regarded as an affair of sen-
timent.

Inadequacy of the system to meet the
mere moral wants of man — protest
against the foundation of the whole
theory.

14. A religion disentangled from all his

torical inquiries, and commending
itself to the mind by its intrinsic
beauty and suitability to man's wants
and wishes, is not Christianity.

15. The essential connexion of Christian-

ity with the history of past ages ad-
vances civilization'wherever Chris-
tianity prevails.
1G. Disadvantages of the mean and illit-
erate in judging of the historical ev-
idences of Christianity.

17. Direct evidence within the reach of

the humbler classes.

18. Development of critical inquiry

abroad has diminished the difficul-
ties of comparatively unlearned
readers.

19. Origin of the Christian religion not a

very remote event— Absurdity of the
mythical theory as applied to" it.

20. Strauss's 'Eife of Jesus1 merely the

working out of a foregone conclu-
sion— Insufficiency of the theories
of Strauss's successors — Causes and
remedies of the present panic — Dan-
ger of concentrating a whole system
of belief upon a single point— Eo-
manist creed.

21. Order in which sceptical objections

are to be dealt with.

22. Very little new matter to be produced

by Infidelity— Conclusion.

ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF
CHRISTIANITY.

1. " Evidences of Christianity ! " exclaims the late
Mr. Coleridge in one of the most popular of his prose-
works, " I am weary of the word. Make a man feel the
want of it .... . and you may safely trust it to its
own evidence."

There can be little doubt, I think, that these words
express the prevailing sentiments of a very considerable
number of Christians at the present day ; and it cannot
be denied that, for many years back, there has been a
general distaste for that apologetic religious literature
which was popular in the last century.

2. This has doubtless been greatly owing to a ^Reac-
tion from the disproportionate attention paid to such
literature by the Divines of a former age, and has taken
place in virtue of that general rule which seems to or-
dain that an over value of any branch of "knowledge in
one generation shall be attended by an unjust deprecia-
tion of it in the next. The argumentative value of
things even so important as the evidences of religion
may, unquestionably, engross the public mind too
much ; and he who is continually occupied in contem-
plating and stating the proofs of its truth will fail of
reaching the just standard of a Christian teacher, or a
Christian man. Such a person will be like a prince
who employs all his time, and strength, and resources
in raising fortresses about a territory which he does not
carefully govern ; or like a landlord who lives but to
accumulate muniments of an estate which he neglects to
till. But the folly of such conduct would be no excuse
for suffering our frontiers to lie open, or our title-deeds
to be lost. Yet something very like such advice is

50 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

sometimes offered to us. Our forefathers, perhaps,
were too apt to include all strong energy of emotion
and play of fancy in their general and unsparing cen-
sures of enthusiasm ; and some of us are disposed to
redress the balance by appealing exclusively to the
imagination and the feelings. We see that it will not
do to address the head alone, and therefore we will not
address it at all, but speak only to the heart.

Now, it is important to observe that this reaction
was so far from springing from any failure of the apolo-
gists in their proper work, that it would hardly have
been possible if that work had not been thoroughly
done. Their proper work was to drive the infidel
writers of their own age out of the field ; and never
was task more completely accomplished. No litera-
ture, of any recent date, has perished more completely
than the infidel literature of the early and middle parts
of the last century.

Ipso3 pefiere ruinas.

It is only some curious antiquary, loving to parade
forgotten lore, who now searches the pages of such
writers as Tolancl or Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan,
and Coward, and Collins — though some of them were
really men of parts, and all conspicuous in their day.
Their very names, indeed, would have passed wholly
from remembrance, but that some of them were an-
swered in works which " posterity will not easily let
die ; " and almost all are found by the young student
of theology enumerated by Leland in his ' Yiew of the
Deistical Writers.'* They survive, like the heroes of
the ' Newgate Calendar,' in the annals of that public
justice which chastised their faults.

3. The long controversy with the infidels assumed,
in the course of it, many forms. But these changes of
position, on the part of the defenders of Christianity,
were caused by the changing tactics of their assailants,

* " The best book," says Burke, " that ever has been written against
these people, is that in which the author has collected in a body the whole of
the infidel code, and has brought their writings into one body, to cut them
all off together."— Speech on Belief of Protestant Dissenters, 1773.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 57

who, when driven from one point of attach, immediate-
ly occupied a new one.

The necessity for an English apologetic * literature
began to be felt even before the Restoration, and is at-
tested by such works as Jeremy Taylor's ' Moral De-
monstration,' and Hammond's remarkable little tract
on the ' Evidences of Religion.' After it, still more.
The press, indeed, was not yet free to the infidels
(though Hobbs, by masking his attack on all religion
and morality under the form of a defence of despotism,
contrived to evade its restrictions) ; but it is plain, from
incidental notices, that sceptical objections were largely
circulated in MS. and in conversation. Men read, in
secret, authors whose names sound strange to this gen-
eration— Averroes, Jordanes Brunus, Cardan, Pompo-
natius, Yanini ; and their doubts, denied a free expres-
sion, festered into grotesque and monstrous forms of
atheism, of which Smith, and More, and Cudworth
occasionally reveal to us portentous specimens. Learn-
ing, too, was beginning to suggest literary difficulties,
of which we have indications in Isaac Yossius and Sir
John Marsham.

It was in this state of things that those two great
works, Cudworth's ' Intellectual System,' and Stilling-
fleet's ' Origines Sacrse,' f were published. They were
certainly very far from being popular and easy defences

* It has been supposed that our early Reformers, conscious of the weak-
ness of external proofs, rested the authority of Scripture wholly upon its
self-evidencing light. But the doctrine of the self-evidencing light had quite
a different origin. The schoolmen had erected theology into a science,
properly so called, which required principles as certain as those of natural
science. They could not find such a certainty in moral evidence, and there-
fore had recourse to supernatural light. The Reformers partook in their
mistake in requiring an assent out of proportion to the evidence ; but sub-
stituted the infallible Scripture as its object for the infallible Church. The
true distinction between assent and adhesion was drawn by Hooker in his
great sermon on the ' Faith of the Elect/ and, after him, by Jackson, Works,
vol. iii., Oxford, 1841.

t Let any competent person read the chapters on Ancient History in the
first book of the ' Origines,'and the account of the laws against the Christians
in b. ii. c. 9, and he will see that those who sneer at that great work are
themselves the proper objects of pity or contempt. Stillingfleet, in his old
age, and when his temper had been spoiled by flattery, and his faculties
decayed by years, engaged foolishly in a controversy with Locke, in which
he did not appear to advantage. Yet he singled out most of those points
which later metaphysicians have deemed the weak points in Locke's harness.
3*

58 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay II

of religion, but they were not intended as replies to
popular attacks. They were the weapons in a war of
giants.

" ISTon jaculo, neqne enim jaculo vitam ille dedisset,
Sed magnum stridens contorta Falarica yenit."

Tliose who despise them have probably never read, and
certainly never understood, them.

4. The point of attack was now gradually changed.
Science was every day bringing fresh aids to religion.
Before the arguments of More, and Cudworth, and
Green, and Ray, and Boyle, and Clarke, the position
of Atheism was generally abandoned as untenable.
The divines had proved to their opponents that there
was such a thing as natural religion ; and those oj)po-
nents now adopted that system of natural religion,
which had been reasoned out for them, as their own ;
declared its proofs to have been always so clear and
convincing that nothing but the artifices of priestcraft
could have obscured them ; and contended that revela-
tion should at once be set aside as a superfluous incum-
brance of its perfection.* The war-cry now was, " The
sufficiency of natural religion ! " The points in Chris-
tianity now selected for attack were those peculiar to it
as distinguished from natural religion. It was con-
tended that miracles were incredible, or utterly insignifi-
cant ; that God could not give a particular revelation ;
that He could not have selected a chosen people ; that
He could not accept a vicarious atonement ; that the
Gospel doctrine of eternal rewards and punishments
subverted morality by making it mercenary, &c. It
was such objections as these that drew forth the mas-
terpieces of Clarke, and Butler, f and "\Yarburton. In

* See some admirable remarks upon the latest form of the same prejudice
in Dr. Salmon's ' Sermons preached in Trinity College, Dublin,' (Macmillan,
1861), pp. 1G0-165.

t I have seen a curious criticism upon Butler's style, in which his disuse
ol:% technical terms is accounted for by saying that he "was essentially a Stoic,
and may be compared with "Epictetus, Antoninus, and Plutarch," who
moralized in the language of common life. The Stoics, I had always thought,
were rather remarkable for the itse of technical terms. " Ex omnibus Philo-
sophis," says Cicero, " Stoici plurima novaverunt. Zeno quoque, eorum
princeps, non tarn rerum inventor fuit quam novorum verborum." — De
Finibus, lib. iii. c. 2. And most persons who have looked into Antoninus

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 5g

their hands the cause of religion was safe ; but, in its
management by less sagacious writers, one disastrous
mistake was committed, the influence of which was long
felt to the injury of the Church.

In the early stage of the controversy it was the infi-
dels who maintained (with Hobbes and Spinoza) the
selfish system of morals, and the defenders of religion
who asserted the nobler doctrine that virtue was an
end in itself. So much, indeed, was this the case, that
hardly anything excited more the general outcry
against Locke's ' Essay ' than the supposition that his
denial of innate ideas destroyed the projjer foundation
of ethics. But, in time, Locke was discovered to have
been a Christian ; and the Platonic theory of virtue
was turned by Shaftesbury (his somewhat ungenerous
pupil) into a support of naturalism, and an engine for
assailing Christianity. This circumstance unhappily
prejudiced, some of the leading divines against even
what was soundest in Shaftesbury's writings. They
saw an accidental gain, in proving the necessity of rev-
elation to assure man that the practice of virtue was,
under all circumstances, his dearest interest, and they
caught at it too eagerly. Thus " Hamlet and Laertes
changed rapiers," and some of the champions of Truth
disgraced themselves by using the poisoned, weapon
which they had wrested from the maintainers of error.

But, though some oversights were committed in the
conduct of the war, the issue of the conflict was not, on
the whole, doubtful. And now, again, the position had
to be altered to meet a new assault. Lord Bolingbroke
gave the signal by complaining that " divines had taken
much silly pains to establish mystery on metaphysics,
revelation on philosophy, and matters of fact on ab-
stract reasoning. Religion," he says truly — " such as
the Christian, which appeals to facts — must be proved
as all other facts that pass for authentic are proved.

will agree with his editor that, so far from taking his diction from common
life, " utitur vocibus plane suis, quas raro apnd alios autores invenias." As
for Plutarch, one is surprised to hear that he was a Stoic. He is commonly
supposed to have written some rather smart treatises against the Stoics.

gQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat II

If they are thus proved, the religion will prevail with-
out the assistance of so mnch profound reasoning.*

To the proof of religion, then, as a matter of fact,
the Christian divines addressed themselves : and as
the points to be considered in this view were the credi-
bility of the prime witnesses to the miraculous facts of
Christianity, and the trustworthiness of the tradition by
which their testimony has been delivered down to us,
it was these which were the chief subjects of the apolo-
getic literature which may be said to terminate in the
works of Lardnerf and Paley.

But though the defenders of Christianity had been
expressly challenged to this field of argument, it was
one into which their antagonists showed little serious
disposition to follow them. Certainly Lord Boling-
broke's own performances, in his ' Remarks on the
Canon of Scripture,' and the historical speculations
which are scattered in his ' Fragments,' were not very
formidable to the faith. Gradually the attack upon
revealed religion fell into the hands of persons too ig-
norant and "too manifestly unscrupulous to produce
much effect upon the educated part of the public.
Such writers as Burgh and Paine might do mischief
among the lower classes ; but they can hardly fill a
place in any literary history.

Two really illustrious names do, indeed, close the
catalogue of the infidels of the last century — Hume and
Gibbon4 But neither appeared as an open assailant of
Christianity, and neither owes his chief fame, to those

* See Warburton's 'Doctrine of Grace.'

t "I should be ungrateful," says Mr. Westcott, "not to bear witness to
the accuracy and fulness of Lardner's ' Credibility ; ' for, however imperfect
it mav be in the view which it gives of the earliest period of Christian litera-
ture, it is, unless I am mistaken, more complete and trustworthy than any
work which has been Written since on the same subject." — History of the
Canon, p. 9.

X In reference to the supposed difficulties and discouragements under
which infidels labour, it is worth observing that both Hume and Gibbon
held lucrative situations under Government. At an earlier period it was
Walpole's policy to patronize some of the most rabid and indecent assailants
of religion ; and, until the infidels had been thoroughly refuted by the
weapons both of wit and argument, the most open avowal of their opinions
was rather a recommendation to what was called " polite society." A strong
reaction in the tone of popular literature began with Steele and Addison.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY gj

parts of his writings in which Christianity was assailed.
After them infidelity in England appeared to have
sheathed its sword, furled its banner, and retired from
the field.

5. But what, meanwhile, was the internal condition
of the Church ? It was (to recur to a former compari-
son) too much like an estate after the decision of a long
suit in Chancery to settle a litigated title. The contro-
versy with the infidels had not been the only one of
that busy century. It was an age of a thousand con-
troversies. There was the great Conjuring Controver-
sy, in which political rancour was still more embittered
by the gall of the odium theologicwn. There was the
great Bangorian Controversy, growing out of the for-
mer, and draining into it all the poisoned dregs of its
predecessor. There was the great Convocation Contro-
versy, which changed country parsons into clerical
Hampdens, and ranged High Church divines in strange
antagonism against the royal supremacy. There was
the great Trinitarian Controversy, begun by Clarke and
Waterland, and continued by a host of inferior writers,
till the public grew weary of the very thought of Pa-
tristic literature.* These and countless minor ones dis-
tracted the attention of churchmen from observing the
spiritual destitution that was spreading widely around
them amidst all this polemical activity. The brilliant
services of the tongue and pen in defending Christian-
ity, or orthodoxy, or even faction, eclipsed the less
showy, but not less real, and far more generally requi-
site, usefulness of the pastoral care, in its ordinary
forms of teaching and admonition. Prelates forsook
their dioceses for the nobler work of writing controver-
sy, or asserting the political interests of their order.
Discipline became relaxed; parishes were neglected;
and at the end of the century the Church found itself
surrounded with a swarming population, and no ade-

* Warburton made an effort, in the preface to his ' Julian,' to restore the
Fathers to some credit, and to put their character in a favourable light: and,
in return, he has been charged with " disdain and ignorance, of Catholic
theology."

02 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

quate machinery provided for dealing with this mass
of ignorance.

It is not true, I think, that the bulk of the lower
orders had been leavened with infidelity.* Their hea-
thenism was negative, not positive ; they had been
suffered to grow up in gross ignorance of religion : and
it was during the prevalence of such evils that the evan-
gelical reaction — commencing with the Methodist move-
ment— began.

6. But it would be an error, I apprehend, to sup-
pose that it was "Whitfield and the "Wesley s who origi-
nated a Reformation. Long before them it appears
manifest that a healthy reaction had set in. As the
old panic dread of fanaticism abated on the one hand,
and the necessities of continual controversy became less
on the other, preachers insisted more and more on the
peculiarities of the Christian faith as the springs and
motives of Gospel obedience. Energetic efforts were
made to build new churches and establish schools
throughout the country : and (what is always a hope-
ful sign) some zeal began to be felt for foreign missions,
and some sense of responsibility for the religious state
of our colonies. A change for the better was going on.
The case of Whitfield and the Wesley s was that of other
energetic men whose names figure in history as the
originators of mighty changes. They fling themselves
into a great movement before it has become conspicu-
ous to the vulgar eye : they put themselves at its head ;
they carry it on to extravagance, and thus accelerate
and extend an impulse which they partially misdirect,
and may ultimately spoil forever.

The 'Methodists, then, had not to convert the English
population to a belief in Christianity ; but they had to
awaken a sense of the Christian religion in men who
had been so long thinking of it as a thing to be proved

* Even that of the upper was greatly overrated : " The truth of the case,"
savs Kurd, a cool observer, " is no moVe than this. A few fashionable men
make a noise in the world; and this clamour being echoed on all sides from
the shallow circles of their admirers, misleads the unwary into an opinion
that the irreligious spirit is universal and uncontrollable."— See the whole
passage, ' Se?'?nons on Prophecy,1 sermon xii., conclusion.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. g3

that they had forgotten that it was also a thing to be
felt and acted on ; and they had to teach even the ele-
ments of that religion to vast numbers of an outlying
mass beyond the range of ordinary instruction. This
was the appropriate work to which the circumstances
of the times really called them. But, besides the pres-
sure of these real wants, there were other cravings of
the popular mind demanding satisfaction. There was
(what is to be found in every generation) the great herd
of superficial minds who always require the stimulus
of something new ; who throw the blame of their own
shallowness upon their teachers, and are always asking
for something more " deep and earnest and thorough-
going," or " more rational and suited to the age," than
the current theology, whatever it may be. This is the
common sequacious mob of " novarum rerum avidi,"
who are drawn, like insects, by the loudest noise and
the greatest glare. This movable, and indeed restless
multitude, swells the decuman wave of every great
movement, and retires with its ebb, only to return again
on the crest of its successor. Nor can it be reasonably
doubted that many of those amiable but weak persons
who have latterly been roving over England in the garb
of Passionists and Oratorians would have been, in the
days of Whitfield's popularity, preaching rank Method-
ism on Kennington Common, amidst a shower of mud
and turnip-tops.

There was, then, in the first place, the call for some-
thing new. But there was also the call for something
fanatical. The terrible experience of the seventeenth
century had left a deep impression on the beginning of
the eighteenth, of dread and bitter scorn of fanaticism.
In the wild tumult of the Commonwealth the nation
had been, as it were, drunk with religious enthusiasm ;
and, in shame and grief at the remembrance of that
horrible debauch and all its crimes, they had hastily
vowed a total abstinence from those feelings which
Hartley describes under the odd but convenient term
Theopathy. But a wild career of another kind of
drunkenness had done much to efface that impression

64 AIDS T0 FAITIL [Essay II.

before the close of that century ; and the hypocrisy of
the Puritans had been thrown into the shade by the
brazen profligacy of the race who succeeded them.
Enthusiasm was again eagerly demanding its turn for
gratification.

7. Furthermore, there was a want that has been
less often remarked as one of the causes of Methodism
— the want of what may be called a freer Ghwrch-ac-
tivity. The busy, bustling democratic spirit of ultra-
Protestantism had made itself so hateful in the previous
generation, that, within the Church, • laymen shrank
from meddling. The synodical assemblies of the clergy
had only spasmodic fits of action, in which they either
tore themselves, or made violent assaults on others.
Their time and energies were wasted in disputes be-
tween the two Houses, disputes with the Crown, dis-
putes with obnoxious brethren ; — till, at last, their
action became so manifestly scandalous that the Minis-
ter was able to silence them entirely, to the general
satisfaction of a public who had ceased to be enter-
tained by their quarrels.* Thus they no longer broke
the dull monotony of quiet which it was the policy of
"Walpole to maintain per fas aut nefas.

" The Convocation gaped, but could not speak."
Outside the Church, dissent had been crushed by
the rigorous laws of Charles II. , and the general disgust
and contempt of the nation, so effectually, that it could
not recover when the Toleration came. The Dissenting
teachers were generally either hard, dry, and narrow
Calvinistical divines ; or men of enlarged and liberal
sentiments, disgusted with their own communion, and
no longer retaining the old prejudices against surplices
and rochettes, but kept from conformity, partly by he-
reditary pride, and partly by dislike to the doctrinal
fetters of subscription to the Articles and Liturgy. f

* Like the old comedy —

" Turpitcr obticuit, Bublato jure nocencli."

t See the notices of negotiations for a comprehension in Doddridge's Cor-
respondence, and compare the language of Harcwood : " Our separation is
not founded in vestments and surplices, in liturgies, crosses, and geuu-
flexions, in godfathers, godmothers, and rotatory motions, — it is Athanasius
who drives us from your altars." — Five Dissertations (1772), p. OS.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY (35

How far an ultra-liberalism had leavened the Dissent-
ing teachers became manifest when the Arian move-
ment carried, at one sweep, the whole body of the
English Presbyterians, and a great part of the Irish,
into a heresy most remote from the traditions of their
forefathers.

Thus, within the Church and without, there was a
demand beginning to be felt for some free and stirring
ecclesiastical activity ; the thought of which men had
ceased to associate with any of the old organizations.

8. In such a state of predisposition, Whitfield and
the Wesleys began their work by preaching the New
Berth. The term had doubtless a sound and valuable
meaning. But, in that sense it meant, not the produc-
tion of a new belief, but of a new sense of the reality
and importance of momentous truths involved in what
had been already assented to.

These two things are frequently confounded by
careless thinkers ; but, in reality, they are quite dif-
ferent : and the. difference is observable, not only in
religious, but in ethical matters, and in the affairs of
common life. In all practical matters, mere belief, or
acquiescence, is one thing ; and that belief, quickened
into a sense of reality, and touching all the springs of
action, is another : and, in all practical matters, the
most mischievous consequences may result from con-
founding together such different things. It would be
a great mistake to fancy that Faith had been produced
as soon as ever the mind had been brought to recognize
the connection of a conclusion with unimpeachable pre-
misses : and it would be a great mistake, on the other
hand, to suppose that all processes of reasoning might
be discarded, and nothing consulted or addressed but
the fancy and the emotions. " Going over the theory
of virtue -' may indeed, as Butler has pointed out, not
only fail to make a man practically moral, but tend to
deaden the sense of moral truths, by weakening their
practical, as it shows their rational, associations. But
we should not therefore listen to a hotheaded reformer
like Rousseau, who would urge us to cast aside all

qq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

theory and reasoning in morals, and attend to nothing
but the immediate dictates of the heart.

Into such confusions and mistakes, however, the
leaders of the Evangelical movement were rapidly be-
guiled by their own sudden and widely-spread success.
They taught (and taught rightly) that we must not only
believe, but feel, before we can act, as Christians. In
recalling attention to the truth that the Gospel is a reve-
lation of God's love to sinners, designed to produce
corresponding affections in our hearts — that the faith
of Christ is a faith that works through love, they did
valuable service, 'which should never be dissembled or
forgotten. But unhappily they went on to teach that
the belief and the action were to be grounded upon the
feelings, considered as the immediate and sensible opera-
tion of the Holy Spirit upon the human mind.

Kow such a preposterous mistake as this could
hardly have been possible for the general acquiescence
of the national mind in the truth of the Christian relig-
ion. For I am persuaded that none except the very
wildest fanatics (and the leaders of whom I speak were
certainly not mere wild fanatics) do really thus wholly
ground their faith upon an imaginary inspiration.
There is, in almost all cases, a secret tacit reference in
the bottom of the heart to some fixed external standard
by which the extravagances of fancy and feeling are
moderated and kept in check. The Methodists could
assume the general truth of Christianity as ^postulatum.
They could assume that there was a Holy Spirit ; they
could assume the necessary coincidence of His teaching
in the heart with His teaching in the Holy Scriptures ;
and they could try the former by the latter. In the
first fervours of their preaching they plainly were
tempted to appeal to the agitations which it produced
in the minds and bodies of their converts as a sort of
miraculous attestation of its truth ; but experience
soon convinced the shrewder of them that such evi-
dence could not be relied upon, and that the true ap-
peal must be made elsewhere. But the logical vicious-
ness of the circle in which the mind moves in such

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ^

cases can only be hidden from it when the external
authority on which it falls back is thought of as some-
thing unquestioned and unquestionable. It is only in
reference to heretics, who hold in common with himself
the inspiration of Scripture, that the Romanist can be
guilty of the absurdity of proving his Church by the
Scriptures, and the Scriptures by his Church. When
dealing with the infidel, he must proceed, just as other
Christians proceed, by the way of moral evidence ; and
from the ' Summa contra Gentiles ' of Aquinas down
to the ' Principia ' of Abbe Iiooke, this is the way in
which Roman Catholic as well as Protestant apologists
have proceeded in the argument against infidelity. So,
also, when one enthusiast meets another of opposite
sentiments, but with persuasions as strong, feelings as
lively, satisfaction as complete, and inward peace as
perfect as his own, each is driven to " try the spirit "
of his antagonist by some external test, forgetting that,
upon his own principles, that standard itself was only
known by the inward discernment which it is now em-
ployed to control. Where such a standard is unhesi-
tatingly admitted by both, the fallacy may be long
concealed ; but as soon as its authority comes to be
generally and openly questioned, the mistake becomes
patent, and can only be corrected by abandoning the
false principle which has produced the mischief.

One circumstance which contributed to favour the
Methodistic exaggerations upon this subject was, that
the doctrine of the influence of the Holy Spirit had
been one comparatively reserved in the preaching of
the preceding half-century. I do not mean that it
was denied, or even wholly omitted. Such strong
and wholesale charges against the teaching of the
Church at that period are often made ; but they are
wholly without foundation. But when referred to in
more than a general way, the reference was usually for
the purpose of guarding against fanatical extravagance
— for correcting the abuse rather than illustrating the
use of that doctrine ; for showing rather what was not,
than what was implied in it.

63 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II

It was not strange, therefore, if, in their ardour to
develop fully, on its positive side, this cardinal Chris-
tian doctrine of a free and intimate communion between
God in Christ and the human soul, the evangelical
leaders were tempted to overstep the bounds of so-
briety ; and to forget that the Holy Spirit is given not
to supersede, or supply the place of any of our natural
faculties, but to help their infirmity, and restore them
to that just balance and due subordination — that proper
and healthful exercise — which have been disturbed by
sin. From Him, indeed, " all holy desires, all good
counsels, and all just works do proceed ; " but we must
first determine that our desires are holy, our counsels
good, and our works just, before we can, without intol-
erable rashness, attribute them to that sacred influence ;
and we cannot detemine that by the mere strength of
our persuasions, or the vividness of our fancies, or the
depth and earnestness of our feelings, without opening
a way for every wild extravagance that can support
itself on strong persuasion, vivid fancy, and deep and
earnest feeling.

Bub, in the flush and fervour of their triumph,
and the general silence of the advocates of infidelity,
the evangelical leaders went on securely — comparing
proudly their own achievements with the performances
of their predecessors — and declaring that they needed
no other evidences than the manifest adaptation of their
doctrine to the wants of mankind, and its living power,
when received, to regenerate a sinful race.

9. The natural consequence of all this was an exten-
sive decay of theological learning. A few leading doc-
trines were, for them, the essence of the Gospel, and
their preaching, in too many cases, became little more
than a monotonous repetition of those doctrines. For
such a ministry neither deep research nor accurate
thinking was at all necessary. On the contrary, it was
manifest that, in order to make a great part of the
Bible available for the direct teaching of the few sub-
jects to which they confined themselves, it was needful
to violate all rules of sober criticism, and confound the

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. gg

Old Testament with the New by an arbitrary spiritual-
ising interpretation to which reason could set no limits.
The practical result of such a course was an extensive,
though vague, popular impression that the test of a cor-
rect exposition of Scripture was the amount of comfort
or edification that the hearer or reader sensibly derived
from it. The pious feelings which a text, as he under-
stood it, produced in his mind were unhesitatingly re-
garded as the consequence of the Spirit's teaching
through .the Word. Human agency, it was indeed
acknowledged, was necessary to teach a man to read ;
and human agency was needful to supply the unlearned
with translations of the Bible ; but, beyond this, very
little was allowed to any other help than prayer, for'
the profitable study of the Scripture.

The real tendency, it is evident, of such opinions is
not to exalt the authority of the Word of God, but to
destroy it. The mind of the reader in such a process
of study, instead of receiving instruction from the Scrip-
ture, imports a meaning into it. We have, not an Exe-
gesis, but an Isegesis. A certain system of doctrine is
first accepted, not -upon the authority of propounders
accredited by external evidence, but for the sake of the
doctrine itself: the Scripture becomes valuable only as
the vehicle of this doctrine, and valuable in proportion
as it can be made the vehicle of this doctrine, and the
means of exciting a certain class of pious sentiments :
and, as it is soon discovered that what the very ele-
ments of criticism would detect as palpable misinter-
pretations or mistranslations of the sacred text may be
the most cherished vehicles of such doctrine, and pow-
erful exciters of such feelings, criticism is laid aside,
and the Bible becomes a kind of cipher, to be read not
by reason but by fancy.

10. I am tracing here the ultimate development of
false principles when left unchecked to their full oper-
ation. But, even in cases where no such extravagance
was possible, we can perceive through a great part of
the religious writings of the last generation a prevailing
tendency to forget the aspect of Fact, and view only

70 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IL

the aspect of Doctrine in contemplating the truths of
Christianity. Indeed, if we steadily retain in our minds
the historical view of Christianity which is presented
in the New Testament, and the primitive creeds, as a
religion of Facts, it will be hard to grasp Mr. Cole-
ridge's dictum as even a comprehensible utterance. It
will immediately strike us as hardly intelligible to
say, that the best way to convince a man that Jesus
Christ was " conceived by the Holy Ghost ; born of the
Yirgin Mary ; suffered under Pontius Pilate ; was cru-
cified, dead, and buried ; and the third day rose again
from the dead ;" is to make him sensible of a strong
wish that these facts should have taken place. It would
at once become plain that the religion which was to be
proved by such a process must be something widely
different from an historical religion.

11. While such causes as I have endeavoured to in-
dicate were in England loosing men's hold upon the
historical element in Christianity, other influences were
operating at a greater distance towards the same result.
The literature of Germany is eminently speculative and
metaphysical. There the Governments have been ac-
customed to forbid, as dangerous to the public peace,
the free discussion of those concrete matters relating to
Church and State on which the popular mind with us
is kept continually interested, and often agitated. The
only scope for the activity of the human intellect in
dealing with morals, religion, and politics, is in those
high generalities where vulgar minds are unable to
follow it. Literary men converse with, and write for,
literary men, and feel no necessity to translate their
thoughts into the common working-day language of
ordinary life. Within the esoteric circle, one dialect
is spoken ; without it, another : and thus speculation is
unchecked by that constant reference to the common
sense of mankind which in freer countries curbs its ex-
travagance.

These two circumstances — the encouragement of un-
limited speculation within bounds remote from vulgar
apprehension, and the repression of everything directly

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ^

tending to agitate the mass of the people, or shake the
institutions of the country — gave its peculiar character
to German infidelity. The problem to be solved was,
the substitution of metaphysical Pantheism for revealed
religion, combined with a retaining of the structure and
ordinances of the Church, together with the language
of the Scripture and the Creeds, accommodated to the
requirements of such metaphysics. The result has
been truly described as a system which, " concealing
scepticism under faith, using much circumlocution to
reach its object, dwelling on the imagination, on poetry,
on spirituality, transfigured what it threw into the
shade, built up wrhat it destroyed, and affirmed in
words what in effect it denied." It was intended for a
kind of Euthanasia of Christianity. Revelation was
to die out, not amidst the insults of coarse assailants,
but the compliments and tender regret of friends, and
to leave behind it an honoured name and a conspicuous
monument. God was to be merged in the Soul of the
Universe : Christ in the Ideal of Humanity : the Incar-
nation" in the union of the higher and lower principles
of human nature ; and the Atonement in the reconcilia-
tion of those principles through struggle and suffering.
For the successful carrying out of such an enterprise,
it was necessary to expel the miraculous from the docu-
ments of Christianity, without charging the authors of
them with fraud or deliberate imposture : and this was
attempted in two ways. The earlier project was to
resolve the supposed miracles into a series of odd nat-
ural events, sometimes mistaken for supernatural by
the excited fancies of the spectators. The later method
proposed to turn almost the whole narrative, natural
and supernatural, into a set of symbolical legends
embodying the idea of the Jewish Messiah as modified
by the necessity of adapting it to Jesus of Nazareth.
Each of these — the naturalistic and the mythical theory
— promised well at first; but each was soon found to
labour under insuperable difficulties. Common sense
revolted at last, even in the studies of German profes-
sors, against the clumsily elaborate explanations by

fj2 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IL

which miracles were converted into natural events.
A fresh hypothesis had to be made for each occurrence,
and it was at last perceived that such a multitude of
strange natural phenomena, crowded into the narrative
of a few years, and gratuitously assumed for the mere
purpose of evading the obvious meaning of the story,
were really far more improbable than miracles them-
selves. On the other hand, the external evidence car-
ried back the date of the sacred writings to an age
when the true history of Jesus was so recent as to make
it incredible that it should have been wholly smothered
then by legends of a mere romantic character ; * while
the gravity, consistency, and perfect quietness of the
style of those writings themselves made the attempt to
turn them into mythical legends a task everywhere
difficult in detail, and, in some cases, even ludicrously
hopeless. Hence, to account for the historical phenom-
ena of Christianity is still really an unsolved problem
among German unbelievers. The plain direct account
— that Jesus was the Son of God ; that He died, and
rose again ; and sent His Holy Spirit to plant His
Church in the world — is set aside by an a priori pre-
sumption against all miracles. But the historical evi-
dence, the Books themselves, still remains a " stone of
stumbling, and rock of offence," against which hypothe-
sis after hypothesis is dashed to pieces.

The irreligious principles which thus, for a long time,
infected the critical and philosophic and theological
literature of the Continent, made it odious in England ;
and the policy at first acted on was to endeavour to ex-
clude it altogether from the notice of the British pub-
lic, f But such a policy was attended with greater
evils than were likely to have ensued if things had
been suffered to take their natural course. A great
part, indeed, of the critical literature of Germany was

* Strauss, for example, is compelled to acknowledge that Luke, the author
of the third Gospel and the Acts, was the companion, and most probably the
disciple, of St. Paul.

t See some curious details in the Appendix to Goode's 'Life of Geddes.'
The scandal occasioned by the translations of Schleiermachcr, and even of
Neibuhr, are matters of recent memory.

Essay II] EVIDENCES OF CHEISTLOTITY. 73

valuable in no sense whatever. Much ot it was a
mere succession of wild hypotheses,* springing up, like
mushrooms, in the morning, and perishing at night,
without leaving even a relic of their decay to manure
the soil on which they had flourished. Much of it was
the mere lost labour of a perverse diligence, and sinister
ingenuity, like the fairy toil of the Gnomes and Kobolds
in the fables of its own mines and forests. But so vast
an amount of intense mental activity and unlimited
research into all the recesses of learning, sacred and
profane, — so free a questioning of everything ; so vari-
ous a combination of new ideas upon such a multitude
of subjects, — could not but contain in it seeds of thought
that might have usefully stimulated the natural indo-
lence of our intellect at home. The mere love of Truth
for its own sake is, in general, not sufficient to set men
on work, and keep them at work. It is, to a great
extent, the collision of thought, the pressure of difficul-
ties, the agitation of doubts, that, by " troubling the
waters," makes them yield their virtue. The culture
of the mind is like the tillage of the soil —

" Pater ipse colendi
Haud facilom esse viam voluit, primusque per artes
Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
Nee torpere gravi passns sua regna veterno."
As it was, English scholarship seemed to have settled
upon its lees ; and we have scarcely ever had an age
so barren of any great efforts as that of which we are
now speaking. f

* " It is well known," says De Wette in the Preface to his * Lehrbuch der

historisch-kritischen Einleitung,' " that from the beginning the pernicious

fondness for vain and arbitrary combinations and hypotheses has been

brought into this department The burden of hypotheses under

which Biblical introduction labours has been much increased in recent
times." He takes credit for bringing back the history of the Septuagint ver-
sion to the place in which Hody left it in 1704.

t I have purposely avoided any details of the reaction towards Church
authority called the Tract Movement. It is certain that, so far from doing
anything to revive the study of Christian evidences, some of the foremost
leaders of that movement went even beyond the most violent ultra-Protes-
tants in denouncing that study as daugerous ; and ultimately encouraged
men to "throw themselves" into a particular system, on the ground mainlj
of its affording scope to certain religious feelings, and gratifying certain
religious tastes. This branch of the subject has been considered in the ' Cau-
tions for the, Times.' (Parker and Son, London.)
4

h± AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II

12. But meanwhile men of leisure and curiosity, in
the universities and elsewhere, disgusted with the tame
and superficial monotony that prevailed around them,
were repairing, as it were, in secret, to the fresh stores
that had been opened on the continent of Europe. The
very circumstance that this foreign literature was se-
cluded from the vulgar gaze, and even a kind of contra-
band learning, gave it an additional charm. The adepts
felt as if they had been initiated in some higher myste-
ries, and were disposed hughly to over-estimate the
value of their attainments. Doubts and strange opin-
ions which, if they had been freely expressed and ven-
tilated in the fresh air and broad sunshine of public
discussion, would have soon shrunk to their proper
small dimensions, grew into giants in the shade, and
over-mastered the minds that had been nursing them m
secret. Then, gradually, the influence of the new opin-
ions began to pervade the current literature of the
country — not in plain and definite statements — that
would have too rudely shocked the multitude, _ but
sometimes in hints " vocal to the intelligent," sometimes
in ambiguous language adapting to other purposes the
religious phrases of the day, sometimes under a cloud
of metaphysical jargon that bewildered the admiring
reader. Thus it has come to pass that, without any
open controversy, but silently, as it were, and " while
men slept," the old matter-of-fact faith has died out in
many minds, and religion has come to be regarded as
an affair of sentiment, that should be disentangled, as
soon as possible, from its historical elements.

13. It would not, I think, be very difhcultto meet
the patrons of such views, even on their own high phil-
osophical ground. I think it would not be hard to
prove that, even if we took the moral wants of man as
the sole measure of religious truth, the Gospel wdiich
these persons preach is inadequate to meet the moral
wants of man. We require not merely an ideal of hu-
man excellence, but to see that ideal realized ; and to
see further that the issue of that realization has been
a triumph over all the ills of life, and over all the men-

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. j-k

aces of death. We require to be shown, in fact, that
man can truly, serve God, and that the end of that ser-
vice is everlasting life. We need a basis of fact, an
historical basis, for our religious faith ; and without
such a basis that faith is a mere castle in the air — a
splendid vision, as practically inoperative to resist real
temptation as every other ideal picture has ever proved.

But, after all, this would be only " answering a fool
according to his folly ; " and it is better to begin by
protesting at once against the foundation of the whole
theory. It is a mere delusion to fancy that man's sup-
posed wants or his wishes are to be taken as either the
major or the minor limits, or, indeed, as any measure
at all, of religious truth. We cannot be justified in as-
suming that things exist because we seem to ourselves
to want, or because we feel that we earnestly desire
their existence ; nor can we even be justified in disbe-
lieving or disregarding the existence of things which
seem to us superfluous, or unpleasant, or even noxious,
if assured on good authority that they exist, and that it
is important for us to take notice of their existence.

That man must, indeed, be a backward scholar in
the school of nature who has not learned, even from his
own experience, how little human wants and wishes are
an evidence that the things wanted and wished for really
exist. It is the common delusion of over-sanguine
youth to fancy that we shall find in life exactly what
we seem to require, and that circumstances will infal-
libly open for us those opportunities which are most
suitable for the display of our talents, and the advance-
ment of our fortunes. But how little does stern reality
tally with these golden dreams of the inexperienced
imagination ! And shall we go on to the grave, trust-
ing these promises of our own fancy, which every day
is, with continually accumulated evidence, proving to
be false ?

It is not, if we are wise, to our wants and wishes
that we trust, in the affairs of this world, as evidence
that the means of remedying those wants, or gratifying
those wishes, are in store for us ; but to the proper evi-

hq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

dence of matters of fact. And if we would find a solid
basis for our religious faith, we must obtain for it also a
similar foundation.

The truth is that we may see beforehand that the
wants and wishes of a creature like man are boundless,
and, in their very nature, incapable of being all grati-
fied. All creatures are necessarily imperfect ; and
every imperfection is the want of some conceivable
good; and every conceivable good is in itself desirable ;
and may, if we give the reins to our desire, become an
object of our wishes.

" Men would be angels, angels would be gods."

Nothing short of absolute, of infinite perfection can
possibly supply all wants, and gratify all the wishes
of an imperfect being, who fancies that he has only to
wish strongly in order to obtain his object.

And equally vain is the notion that we may safely
disregard everything that seems not suitable to our
moral nature. Here, again, let us have recourse to that
analogy which the great master of that argument has
justly described as " the very guide of life." How ill
would a child reason who should obstinately neglect
every study, the use of which he could not himself dis-
cern ! And, as to the things of another life, are we not
all children % Shall we, who know not what an hour
may bring forth, — we, whose wisest calculations and
most sagacious foresight are perpetually b allied and
brought to nothing in a moment by the changes and
chances of even this short mortal life — shall we presume
to take our own case , for eternity into our own hands,
and determine for ourselves what is sufficient for us to
believe % The Almighty has taken us under His own
care. - He has promised us an inheritance of which we
know little more than that it is a state of eternal holi-
ness and happiness. He has engaged to prepare us for
it here, and, for that purpose, has revealed to us those
truths which He saw fitting for our discipline. Can
we know so certainly how the character which He re-
quires is to be formed, as to be able to correct the

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ' *7

method which He has been pleased to employ ? Do we
know our spiritual diseases so well that we can safely
reject the remedies which the Great Physician has pre-
scribed for them ? Are we, in this our state of infancy,
so perfectly acquainted with all that is needful for our
manhood that we can manage our own education, and
determine the training by which we are to be reared for
Heaven \ If, indeed, the present life were the whole
of each man's existence, if our only immortality were
the immortality of the human race, there might be
some specious ground for saying that we had now made
such a survey of all our narrow domain, and gained
such a knowledge of our capacities and implements,
that we were at last entitled to be our own masters, and
might trust to our own little skill and prudence in the
management of our own little territory. But if a
boundless and untried existence, beyond the limits of
all our experience, really does lie before each individual
hereafter, it is surely mere madness to neglect, in mat-
ters which concern that existence, the teachings of Him
who alone knows the nature of that hidden world into
which we are so blindly passing.

A prudent man, then, will not only inquire what it
is that his heart seems to want, but also how far those
wants are, in point of fact, supplied. He will not only
consider what he wishes to be true, but what he has
reasonable evidence for believing to be true. He will
treat the truths of Religion as matters of fact, and seek
for the appropriate evidence of matters of fact — that is,
in other words, for historical evidence.

14. A religion disentangled entirely from all histor-
ical inquiries, and commending itself immediately to
the mind by its mere intrinsic beauty and suitability to
man's wants and wishes, may be a very captivating
vision, and seems highly desirable on many accounts ;
but it is a gross abuse of words to call such a religion
Christianity. Christianity is the religion which was
taught by Christ and his Apostles ; and it was certainly
an historical religion — a religion made up of matters
of fact, and propounded on the evidence of matters of

YS AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

fact — which they promulgated. " That which we have
heard and seen with our eyes, and our hands have han-
dled of the Word of Life, declare we unto you," is the
language of the first preachers of the Gospel ; and the
modern attempt to separate the ideal Christ, the type
of the godlike in man, from the historical person, is not
a whit less opposed to the genius of the Apostolic re-
ligion than was that teaching of the Gnostics against
which the last of the Apostles raised his warning voice
as the very spirit of Antichrist. The Christ of the
Gnostics was an impalpable ^Eon ; the Christ of their
"successors is something less substantial — an abstract
idea.

Indeed, whatever may be the case with other re-
ligions, the Gospel certainly never made its way by
first recommending itself to the conscious wants and
wishes of mankind. It seemed, on the contrary, to
contradict all man's expectations, and to outrage all
their cherished feelings, and to cross all their desires.
It was " to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the
Greeks foolishness." It is not until believed and
acted upon that it gradually changes the temper and
frame of mind into accordance with itself; it is like
some of those tonic medicines which, at first, seem bit-
ter and disagreeable, until the palate is accustomed to
their taste, and the stomach braced and strengthened
by their wholesome harshness.

It may, indeed, on the surface, seem strange that
the Christian religion should be thus encumbered, as it
were, by an apparatus of history ; and that men should
be required to investigate the evidence of past transac-
tions in order to find a basis for their Faith, instead of
merely consulting their hearts, and finding an echo
there, to attest the divinity of its voice. But in this, as
in other cases, we shall find, upon reflection, that what
seems the foolishness of God, is wiser than men. The
careful and candid investigation of the evidences on
which Christianity rests — not for the satisfying a mere
inquisitive curiosity, but to find truth for the regulation
of our lives — is an eminently practical exercise of the

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CIIEISTIANITY. ^9

understanding, and brings home the great facts of our
religion as facts to the mind, with a feeling of their
reality which the most highly raised efforts of the imag-
ination cannot give them ; and thus makes rational
deliberate faith a counterpoise to the engrossing influ-
ence of sense. In the ali'airs of the world, we know
that realities address themselves, in some shape or
other, to the judgment ; and that those that exclusively
and immediately address the feelings and the imagina-
tion are unreal. If, then, the objects of religion en-
tered only through this ivory gate of fancy into the
mind, a steady practical faith in their reality could be
hardly maintained. I say a steady practical faith ; for,
undoubtedly, if religion were a mere affair of feeling
divorced from practice, or of practice divorced from
motive, and reduced to the mere mechanism of custom,
there might be something intelligible in discarding all
investigation of evidence. Every one, even superficially
acquainted with the structure of the human mind, is
aware that the feelings may, as in the case of a novel
or a play, be deeply interested and strongly excited,
without anything but, at best, a sort of dim and tran-
• sient belief in the reality of the objects which thus in-
terest and excite them ; and that, for such a purpose,
scarcely anything more is necessary than that the mind
should not, for the time, attend to their unreality. This
suffices for mere feeling : but for action, a perfectly
sane man requires more. He requires evidence as a
ground of belief: and, even in an insane man, — where
the fancy has become paramount, and established its
throne upon the ruins of the understanding, close ob-
servers can generally detect a lurking suspicion of the
deceitfulness of the mind's own visions, — an unsteady
wavering flicker in the predominating persuasion, which
betrays a difference of no small importance between
rational and irrational belief ; a secret sense of- insecu-
rity and weakness, which makes the mind of the mad-
man, except in some high paroxysm of frenzy, succumb
and quail before the calmer presence of a well-regulat-
ed intellect.

gO AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

15. There is another use also served by tliis compli-
cation of religion with historical inquiry, which it is
not unsuitable to notice. The essential connection of
Christianity with the history of past ages makes a pro-
vision for the maintenance and advancement of civiliza-
tion in every country in which Christianity prevails.
It was this which made the preservation of learning-
possible when the great flood of barbarism swept over
Europe, and the Church alone contained the sacred de-
posit of an earlier civilization — the memory of the past,
and the hopes of the future. And it is this which is
still a bulwark against barbarism. Barbarism is essen-
tially that state of mind which is produced by placing
it exclusively under the influences of a contracted pres-
ent sphere of circumstances. It is, as Dr. Johnson just-
ly said, " by making the past, the distant, and the fu-
ture predominate over the present," that we are " ad-
vanced in the dignity of thinking beings." All history,
more or less, renders this valuable service to the human
mind ; but it cannot be reasonably doubted that the
history of the Church, in that view of it which the Bible
presents, as one continuous body from the beginning of
the world, is, of all others, the best fitted to render such
a service. The idea of history, it has been truly said,*
is that of the biography of a society. There must be,
to constitute the narrative properly historical, an unity
of action, interest, and purpose among the persons who
are the subjects of it. Now, whether we consider the
length of its duration, or the breadth of its extent, — the
variety of its fortunes, or the unity of its purpose, — the
diversity of its members in age, and character, and lan-
guage, and manners, and habits of thought, and stages
of cultivation, or the closeness of mutual relation into
which all these seemingly scattered persons have been
brought, — what other society can anywhere be pointed
out which can form so noble and so useful a subject for
the historian? It is the conception of the Church
which enables the mind not only to combine, but to
blend together, the pastoral simplicity of the primitive

* Arnold's Lectures on History.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. gl

times of mankind and the elaborate civilization of later
ages ; — to bring into one collection all the characteris-
tics of all the climes and regions of the world ; — to
bring all specimens of the human family, " from the
north and from the south, and from the east and from
the west," and make them " sit down " before us " in
the kingdom of God." JSTor can I doubt that the pecu-
liar strength, and freedom, and versatility of the mod-
ern European intellect are, to a great extent, due to the
historical character of Christianity. Iso one can read,
intelligently, so much as the prime documents of our
faith, even in a vernacular translation, without feeling
himself transported into a region where the modes of
conception and of expression, the events and the insti-
tutions to be met with, are strikingly different from
those which surround him with the associations of ev-
eryday life ; without, in short, finding himself, for the
time, emancipated from the mere influence of the pres-
ent, and brought under that of the distant and the past.
JSTor could anything have secured such a potent and
salutary influence to history over the human mind as
the indissoluble tie by which it is connected with relig-
ion ; the feeling that, in our nearest and most intimate
relations, we are personally connected, as members of
one body, with the remotest past and the illimitable
future, — linked in one unbroken living chain, with patri-
archs and prophets, and apostles and martyrs, — heirs
with them of the same promise, and waiting with them
for the same completion of the great mystery of God.
And it is worth observing that Providence has so ar-
ranged matters, that the Eastern world — to which the
language and habits of thought contained in Scripture
were most familiar, — seems destined to receive back its
lessons, modified by the peculiarities of Western civili-
zation and European teaching. In those nations where
the language of Christianity was, as it were, a native
voice, it produced least influence at first as a source of
permanent civilization. It was the leaven of foreign
associations which caused a fermentation in the West-
ern mind : and, from the blended mass which was the

82 AIDS TO FAITH [Essay IL

product of that fermentation, it seems destined to pass
back to the realms from which it came, in a form fitted
to produce there a similar effect.

In the same degree, then, as any system has a
tendency to break the connexion between history and
religion, in that same degree it tends to deprive civili-
zation itself of one of its chief safeguards, — to with-
draw from effective operation one of the most power-
ful causes which now stimulate research and bring the
minds of the present generation into contact with those
of the past. If the mind be referred immediately, for
religious guidance, not to an historical document, but
to a supposed infallible authority of the present
Church, or to the supposed infallible authority of each
man's fancy and feelings, the influences favourable to
barbarism are so far restored : and I think the visible
results of both experiments, so far as either has been con-
sistently worked out, are such as to show that a retrogres-
sion towards barbarism would be their most probable con-
sequence. To look only at the present — to live in the
present — shape our habits by the present — adopt, at
every change, the vogue of the clay — and cast aside
whatever we cannot accommodate to the taste of our
own generation — this is to do our utmost to restore
barbarity, and sink us below the level on which God
and nature intended us to bo placed. And hence we
may find fresh reason for admiring the wisdom of the
Divine economy which, in the case of the Jewish and
of the Christian Church alike, withdrew, after a while,
the living voice of inspired guides, and substituted for
them, as the ultimate basis of faith, a written historical
record of their teaching ; thus building the Church, as
a continuous body through all ages, on that foundation
of the apostles and prophets, of which Jesus Christ
Himself is the chief corner-stone.

16. But then it will be said, — " Is not Christianity a
Gospel to be preached to the poor? and how are the
mean and illiterate to judge of the historical evidences
of Christianity ? "

Now, undoubtedly, not in religious matters alone,

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

83

but in respect of almost every useful truth alike —
moral, scientific, economical, political — the uneducated
and ill-educated classes labour under peculiar disad-
vantages ; and this, so far as it is a difficulty, is a
difficulty upon every hypothesis which admits a
benevolent Providence and recognises a difference
between truth and falsehood.* The true lesson to be
derived from the circumstance is, that we are bound,
as far as we can, to raise the condition of our meaner
brethren, and make them more and more capable of
judging for themselves. Still, however, no doubt,
great difference will continue to subsist : nor will it
ever be possible to equalize all understandings, or
make the opportunities and capacities of improvement
the same for every mind. But each class must be
contented, in this as in other cases, with such an
amount of evidence as its circumstances will allow ;
and, if the upper classes would faithfully do their
duty, this amount of evidence would not be small in
any case.

Let it be observed that the form of this objection
allows us to assume that Christianity is true ; that it is
capable of being proved true by rational evidence to
well-informed persons ; that, among men of literary
attainments, it can hold its ground with the weapons of
argument ; that it needs not to fear any amount of
light, or shrink from any examination however search-
ing; and, assuming this, let us consider what the con-
dition of the lower classes would have been, if the
Church had faithfully clone its duty. The Christian
religion would then come before them as a religion
manifestly subserving no interested temporal ends —
encumbered with no artifices of priestcraft — notorious-
ly based, from the first, upon the ground of rational
evidence, and maintaining itself through all genera-
tions upon that ground alone, — open to all challengers,
and ready at all times to give a reason of its hope to

* The difficulties attending the rejection of these being all the marks of
design and benevolent intention in the structure of nature and the course of
history.

g4 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

every one demanding it; — and can it be said that this
wouid not be good evidence to them of its truth ; and
evidence of the same kind as that upon which they
must rely, from their circumstances, for the truth of
almost everything of importance at all removed beyond
the sphere of their own immediate experience ? * It
is the putting of Christianity upon other grounds; it is
the claim of authority to silence doubt ; it is the dis-
couragement of inquiry, the contempt of reason, the
depreciation of intellect in religious matters ; it is the
shrinking from light and correction, the suffering pure
truth to be encrusted with prejudices and mistakes for
fear of unsettling men's minds ; it is the borrowing of
the arts and language that are the common-signs of
imposture by the friends of truth, and leaving its own
bold speech and open ways to its enemies ; it is these
unworthy methods that deprive the lower classes of the
safeguards which, with such a religion, they might and
ought to have for the security of their faith. The
Providence of God has linked all classes together in
mutual dependence, so that, " if one member suffer, all
the members suffer with it ;" and the Gospel cannot be
preached to the poor, if the well-instructed scribes do
not take the only measures by which it can possibly be
preached with effect.

IT. But, even of direct evidence, the amount is not
slight that is within the reach of the humbler classes.
There is much of most persuasive evidence of the truth
of Christianity which not only requires no dialectical
skill to make it felt, but which cannot be drawn out
and stated in its full force by any amount of dialectical
skill. Let any one consider with himself what the
nature of the evidence is upon which he has formed
his judgment of the characters of the persons with
whom he converses in daily life. What a medley
of slight traits, looks, gestures, chance expressions,
little circumstances, each, perhaps, ambiguous in itself,

* See an interesting statement of the nature of the evidence within the
reach of the lower orders, in Archbishop Whately's ' Easy Lessons ' on the
Evidences, pp. 23-27.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. g5

but all conspiring in one definite impression, will it
appear ! And all these he has gathered in and com-
bined, not by a consciously logical process, watching
for and sifting each scruple of evidence as it arose, and
then deliberately putting them together, like a clever
advocate to make a case ; but unconsciously, and by a
kind of instinct, the mind has drawn its inference from
these little circumstances which he can remember, and
from a thousand other evanescent phenomena which he
cannot now recall. And yet all this evidence was
good evidence, upon which he unhesitatingly relies.

Now such is the reasonable evidence which the
Scriptures themselves yield to the candid and attentive
reader, who is neither searching for proof nor watch-
ing for objections. It deposits, as it were, the practi-
cal persuasion of its own truthfulness and honesty by
a thousand artless traits while we converse with its
pages. "If we may judge," says Jackson, "of the
truth of men's writings by their outward form or
character, as we do of men's honesty by their looks,
speech, or behaviour, what history in the world bears
so perfect a resemblance to things done and acted, or
yields (without further testimony than its own) so full
assurance of a true narration?" [Works, vol. i. p. 27.]
Men who never consciously framed a syllogism have
felt, and are daily feeling, the force of such evidence.
They are continually perusing the accounts of miracles
so numerous and so striking that the witnesses of them
could not be mistaken, and yet imbedded indissolubly *
in a narrative so artless, so grave, so honest, so intelli-
gent, as palpably to be no product of fraud or fancy ;
and, without any elaborate criticism or detailed pro-
cess of deduction, their mind takes the impression
which a book so circumstanced is naturally and rea-
sonably fitted to impart. Thus many a mind that has
scarcely ever felt a doubt, or heard of an infidel in

* " The miracles in the Bible," says Bolingbroke, " are not, like those in
Livy, detached pieces that do not disturb the civil history, which goes on very
well without them. . . . But the whole history is founded on them ; it
consists of little else ; and if it were not a history of them, it would be a his-
tory of nothing."

gg AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II

Christian lands, has, in reality, based its faith upon
rational evidence. Its belief has not been built
amidst the noise of hammers and the ring of axes, but
has grown up, "a noiseless structure," from the ground
of an honest and true heart.

18. In some respects, indeed, the result of the un-
limited development of critical inquiry abroad has
been to diminish, rather than increase the difficulties
of comparatively unlearned readers. Almost the only
infidel theory which is quite intelligible to the lower
orders, is that coarse one which treats the New Testa-
ment as a mere forgery throughout, or ascribes the origin
of our religion to gross fraud and imposture. Now, if
there be any certain result of German criticism at all,
it has been to show that any such theory is utterly un-
tenable. The "Wolfenbiittel Fragments were almost the
last shameful effort in that direction, and their track is
a road which no one, with the smallest pretensions to
literary character, would now venture to pursue. Count-
less other evasions of the plain force of evidence, each
contradictory of the other, and each rejected with con-
tempt by almost every one but its author, have been
invented ; but there is, except at Tubingen, no disposi-
tion to return to what may be called the old orthodox
system of infidelity. To men of plain common sense,
if they fully understood the whole state of the case, it
would appear that ail the premisses are granted which
render inevitable an admission of the substantial truth
of Christianity. Put, for example, Paul's undoubted
Epistles, with Luke's Gospel and Acts, into the hands
of a plain ordinary Englishman, and tell him, " It is
no longer questioned that these letters are the genuine
work of Paul ; it is no longer questioned that the
writer of the other Books was his companion, who com-
piled them while the men were still alive, who had
conversed with Jesus, and seen him crucified ; it is no
longer doubted that Paul and Luke were sincere and
honest men who had no design to impose upon their
hearers ; and the alternatives before you are either to
admit that Christianity was really grounded upon

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. gy

miracles, or to explain these documents by the
methods of Paulus. or Strauss, or Weisse, or some
other Naturalistic or Mythic Doctor ;" — let this, I say,
be the issue placed before an Englishman of ordinary
common sense and information, and there can be little
doubt that he would regard the first alternative as far
less prodigiously incredible than the second. The case
stands thus :

10. The origin of the Christian religion is not one
of those events so distant as to be lost in a fabulous
antiquity. "Whatever gave rise to it occurred at a period
of which we know a great deal, in a civilized world,
and within historic times; and was something which
enabled the first preachers to make more converts among
enemies in five years, than our most active missionaries
have made in five centuries. Within no long time after
the death of Jesus we find Christian Churches diffused
in the most distant places over this civilized world,
continually growing in numbers and importance, under
the eyes and in spite of the hostility of their powerful
neighbours. The consentient tradition of all these
Churches ascribes their foundation to the first Disciples
of Jesus Christ, and ascribes to those Disciples the
Gospel that He had been raised from the dead, and
that this Resurrection, with its preceding and accom-
panying miracles, was the ground of their faith. Their
creeds, their sacraments, their universal observance of
Easter and the weekly Lord's day, all embody this tradi-
tion. These Churches are not without written historical
records." They put forward, with one consent, a body
of documents, giving a detailed account of Christ's life,
and death, and resurrection, and of the first preaching
and fortunes of his Apostles, and embracing a collection
of letters from some of those Apostles themselves.
With respect to many of these writings, no literary

* " It is allowed," says Mr. Westcott, " by those who have reduced the
genuine Apostolic works to the narrowest limits, that from the time of
Irenaeus [i. e. the latter part of the second century^ the New Testament was
composed essentially of the same books as we receive at present, and that
they were regarded with the same reverence as is now shown to them." —
History of the Canon, p. 8.

88 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay II

man of any character, at present, doubts their genuine-
ness With respect to most of the rest, it is at any rate
agreed that they are not mere forgeries of a late age,
but books written in good faith, at a date when the true
history of the times they refer to was easily to be ob-
tained. The testimony of these documents Is the same
as the tradition of the Churches. They put the Christian
religion upon the evidence of miraculous facts, and
specially of Christ's Resurrection, as attested by the
alleged witnesses of it, in the very place where He had
been executed as a malefactor, and in the face of the
very persons by whom He had been condemned and
slain.

What we are called upon to believe is — that all the
Churches were mistaken as to the grounds of their own
faith ; that all the documents, and the Apostles them-
selves, have given a wrong account of it; that the
belief in the religion was not grounded on the belief in
the miracles, but that the belief in the miracles was
grounded on the belief in the religion; that Jesus, who
(if He wrought no miracles and was the subject of no
miracles) contradicted, in every circumstance of his
birth, and education, and teaching, and life, and death,
the best established and most cherished notions of all
around Him concerning the promised Messiah, was be-
lieved, in spite of all, to be that Messiah; that miracles
were ascribed to Him because the Messiah ought to
have wrought miracles ; that He was believed to have
risen again because it suddenly occurred to somebody
that He ought to have risen again ; and that, by such
an easy and intelligible process as this, a creed of fables
was transmuted into a creed of facts, and stamped in-
delibly, and with one impression, upon the faith and
institutions of the great Christian communities through-
out the world.

This is, in plain words, the theory ot the origin of
Christianity corrected to the latest results of Continental
criticism ; and it seems to amount to this — that Chris-
tianity had no origin at all. It is, indeed, not criticism
that has spontaneously yielded these results ; but it is

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. gg

the a priori prejudice against miracles which has forced
criticism upon this strange enterprise.

20. Let any one take up (it is almost forgotten now
in Germany, but may he still met with in England)
Dr. Strauss's 'Lite of Jesus,' and he will see at once
that the author is all through merely working out a
foregone conclusion. Not one of his orthodox prede-
cessors in the seventeenth century ever set himself with
more dogged resolution to fight his way through all
difficulties in defence of the verbal inspiration, scientific
accuracy, and textual integrity of every jot and tittle in
the Hebrew Scriptures, and find a way, or make one,
to the goal which he had determined to reach, than
Strauss does to destroy it. And so with his successors ;
the very multitude and discordance of their theories is
a witness to their insufficiency. They are the struggles
of a strong animal in toils which he cannot break. The
favourable posture for an infidel is that of an objector;
when he is forced to recognise the necessity of having
something positive on his own side, he finds his own
difficulties greater than those over which he has been
exulting in the case of his antagonists ; and the end
has been that, in Germany, thinking men are either
returning to the faith of their fathers, or laying the de-
tailed examination of the phenomena of Christianity
aside as an insoluble problem. And in reality, the
greater part of the panic which has lately spread among
us, from the reappearance of the infidel controversy in
England, has arisen from the security, the unhesitating
acquiescence, of the previous generation. In the general
silence of objectors, in the general recognition, which
pervaded our wdiole literature, of the unquestionable
truth of Christianity, men had ceased to reflect partic-
ularly upon the rational grounds of their faith. The
authority of the Bible became a kind of axiom, and
everything that wras supposed to be involved in that
authority was grasped with the same firmness of belief
In such a state of mind, the wdiole of its creed is no
firmer than the weakest part ; and hence, when open
attacks began again to be made upon what men had

90 AIDS TO FAITH. [Ess at IL

regarded from their childhood as essential portions of
Christianity — when attention was called to the real dif-
ficulties which beset many passages, the undoubtedly
strong objections which may be urged against many
articles — when writers of learning and ability were
quoted as authorities, not for, but against, the traditions
of their youth — an alarm arose as if the whole of religion
was giving way. This danger always attends the con-
centration of a whole system of belief upon a single
point. It is like embarking a whole army at once, for
a long and perilous voyage, in one gigantic transport.
If the ship hold together, much is gained in speed and.
convenience ; but if the vessel sink, all goes with her
to the bottom.

It is thus with the Romanist, who builds all on the
authority of the present Church. If one portion, how-
ever small or slight, of the complicated structure of his
creed be shaken, the basis of it is shaken, and the entire
edifice falls to ruin in a moment. And so, when the
feelings of the reader have been made the test of the
inspiration of Scripture ; — when men have been accus-
tomed to say, " We feel, from the echo in our bosoms,
from the warm sentiments of devotion wdiich it excites,
from the sensible comfort that it gives, that this is and
must be no less than the voice of God speaking with
us;" — in such a case the decision of criticism against
the genuineness or authenticity of a. single book, or
even of a single passage, becomes a thing formidable
to the whole of faith. If the religious sense, on which
the reader relies for distinguishing the divine from the
human, have erred in any case, its assumed infallibility
is gone ; the test itself of inspiration is shown to be fal-
lacious ; and he is left doubtful whether the whole of
his belief may not be founded on a mere delusion.

But a faith founded upon rational evidence is not
liable to be thus shaken. If it be shown, for example,
that a particular verse in the 1st Epistle of John, or
even a long passage in his Gospel, is an interpolation,
this does not subvert the proof of the genuineness oi
the rest of those pieces; since the evidence for the dis-

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

91

puted parts, and the evidence for the rest of the docu-
ments, is not the same; and such a faith is grounded
upon and proportioned to the evidence. And if the
evidences of Christianity, — their nature and degrees, —
and even the first elements of the criticism of our sacred
books, were made an ordinary part of the instruction
of every tolerably educated man, we should be free
from those periodical panics which are a disgrace to
the intelligence of a Christian nation.

As it is, when suddenly put upon searching the
reasons of the faith that is in them, men hardly know
at what point to begin, and in their confusion often
seize first upon the weakest.

21. In dealing, either for the satisfaction of our-
selves or of others, with sceptical objections, it is of vast
importance to consider in what order they are to be
dealt with. If we suffer ourselves to fall into the error
of regarding each part of our position as ecpially strong
in itself, the consecpiences may prove calamitous.

There are, for example, narratives of miraculous
occurrences in the Bible, which, if we met with them
separate from the rest, or connected with documents of
a different character — if we found them in a life of
Pythagoras or Apollonius — we should reasonably set
aside as mere legendary stories, or exaggerations of
purely natural events. It would be a grievous over-
sight to stake the truth of Christianity at once upon the
separate defence of such passages as these. The rea-
sonable course is to waive them at the outset ; — to let
them stand over for consideration in their due place ; —
and to consider, first of all, the most important and
best circumstanced facts upon which the claims of
Kevelation rest. If these can be established, the
others will either be not worth fighting about, or will
follow as a matter of course. " Supposing it acknowl-
edged," says Bishop Butler, "that our Saviour spent
some years in a course of working miracles ; there is
no more presumption worth mentioning against His
having exerted this miraculous power in a certain de-
gree greater than in a certain degree less ; in one or

92 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II.

two more instances, than in one or two fewer; in this,
than in another manner." (Analogy, part ii. c. 2.)

It is quite true — and should always be distinctly
allowed — that nervous excitement, the strong tonic of
a powerful faith and a lively imagination — perhaps also
some subtle influence, such as animal magnetism — are
capable of producing wonderful cures of some disor-
ders; and that, if some of the narratives of miraculous
cures in the Gospel and the Acts were all the miracu-
lous narratives relating to the first planting of Chris-
tianity that we had, it might be reasonable to suppose
the cures effected by some such agencies as these.
But if other miracles remain which are incapable of
any such solution, and sufficient to prove the claims of
Christianity to a divine origin, then the natural expla-
nations, even of the former, cease to be the more prob-
able ; because such natural effects as they assume,
though possible, are more or less unlikely ; whereas,
there is no improbability in supposing that a person
endowed with the power of miracles exerted it upon a
particular occasion. It is improbable that any man
ever lived in Greece of such strength as is attributed
to Hercules ; but if it were once established that such
a person lived at a given time, there would be nothing
improbable in any story of a particular exertion of that
strength, merely on account of its surpassing the vigour
of ordinary mortals.

Upon similar principles we should carefully avoid
entangling the question of the general truth of Chris-
tianity with that of the nature or extent of the inspira-
tion of the sacred writers. There are, indeed, some
arguments for Christianity which tend to prove directly
the inspiration, in some form or other, of those writers ;
as, for instance, that derived from the omission in their
works of topics which men in their circumstances
would naturally have introduced, an argument which
has been pressed with great force by the Archbishop
of Dublin in his first series of Essays.* But, in gen-
eral, it is evident that our first concern with the sacred

* See also Bishop Hind's very valuable work on Inspiration.

Essay II.] EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. Q3

writers is in their character of witnesses ; and we
should carefully distinguish in our minds the objec-
tions against their character as inspired persons, and
objections against their character as trustworthy rela-
tors of facts, The question of the nature and extent of
their inspiration legitimately comes in after the main
facts have been established, which prove our Saviour's
divine mission, and the promise of supernatural assist-
ance which He made to His Apostles.

Some parts, indeed, of Scripture, such as the proph-
ecies, claim inspiration directly, and on the face of
them ; and in the case of these, to disprove their in-
spiration is to disprove their trustworthiness.

But, meanwhile, in the interpretation of such writ-
ings, it cannot be reasonable to put out of sight the
character which they claim, and insist upon expound-
ing them as if they were not inspired at all.* This is
a principle of criticism which is never forgotten, ex-
cept in the case of Scripture. If the Christian revela-
tion be really the completion of the Jewish — if Christ
and His Church be really the development of the mys-
tery of God, which was gradually wrought and pre-
pared for in all the previous dispensations — and if the
prophets of those dispensations really " spoke as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost," it is no more unrea-
sonable to give their lofty expressions a secondary ref-
erence to the coming glory than to find allusions to
Augustus in the '^Eneid,' or to Elizabeth and Mary in
the ' Faery Queen,' or to the Roman Republic in an
ode to Horace's ship.f And, indeed, the very possi-

* See < Charge of the Archbishop of Dublin,' 1861. Parker and Son,
London.

+ See Hurd on the 'Prophecies,' and Warburton's 'Divine Legation,' b.
vi. " In the case of prophecies with a double sense," I have observed else-
where, "we may be often sure of the secondary application of some parts of
them, even though we may see clearly that other parts have no such applica-
tion Thus, for example, no one doubts that, in Spenser's Chronicle of

Faery Kings (b. ii. c. x.), the following lines —

He left two sonnes, of which fair Elferon,

The eldest brother, did untimely die ;

Whose emptie place the mighty Oberon _

Doubly supplied in spousall and dominion, <yc. —

He, dying, left the fairest Tanaquill

Him to succeed therein, by his last will.

Fairer and nobler liveth none this howre,

Ne like in grace, ne like in learned skill, &c.—

94 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IL

bility of such an interpretation — the continuity of
thought, character, and plan, in a literature spread
over so many ages, which makes it feasible — has ever
struck thoughtful men, from Justin Martyr to Pascal,
as strong evidence for the inspiration of that literature.
22. But to pursue these topics further would be
only to repeat what has been a thousand times said
already; and when infidelity comes to drop its reserve,
and tell us plainly what the deep objections are that
are now only hinted at in more 'or less doubtful forms
of insinuation, it will most probably be seen that there
is very little new matter to be produced in this great
controversy, and that the Church is assailed in the
nineteenth century with no stronger artillery than her
walls have borne for eighteen centuries already. My
earnest wish is, that those who think they can speak
would speak out and let us know the worst.

iv Se <pdeL /cat oXecrcrov.
And if the literal truth of Christianity fall, it will cer-
tainly be a final and total subversion of the whole
religion. Let no one suppose that its spirit can remain
living and acting among us after its body has been de-
composed. Its spirit will return to God who gave it.
"That man," says one who was no narrow bigot, "who
does not hold Christ's earthly life, with all its mira-
cles, to be as properly and really historical as any
event in history, and who does not receive all points
of the Apostolic creed with the fullest conviction, I do
not conceive to be a Protestant Christian. And as for
that Christianity which is such according to the fashion
of the modern philosophers and pantheistSj without a
personal God, without immortality, without an individ-
uality of man, without historical faith, it may be a
very ingenious and subtle philosophy, but it is no
Christianity at all.""

No one, I say, doubts that these lines refer to Henry Till, and Queen Eliza-
beth, though there is no consistent parallel between* the succession of Faery
kings and British monarchs."— Note to Butler's Analogy, p. 203.

To argue from the extravagant abuse of types and double senses against
their existence, is like arguing that if we admit figures of speech in any writ-
ing, we cannot be sure that anything in it is literal..

* Niebuhr, quoted by Ncander in the Preface to the Srd edition of his
'Life of Christ.'

ESSAY III.

PROPHECY.

CONTEXTS OF ESSAY III.

1. Introduction.

2. The Divine Mission of tiie Proph-

ets— Definition of the term " Proph-
et.1'

3. Definition of the title "Seer."

4. Definition of the designation "Man

of God."

5. Definition of the phrase " Man of the

Spirit.1'

6. Scripture contrast of the false prophet.

7. TnE Power to predict the Fu-

ture—Popular belief of the He-
brews.

8. Claims of the Prophets themselves.

9. Justification of their claims by the

fulfilment of their predictions : Ex-
amples from Nahum — Hosea — Amos
— Micah — Isaiah.

10. Groundlessness of recent insinuations

shown by the fulfilment of a re-
markable prediction — Untrustwor-
thiness of Rationalist criticism.

11. Predictions of Moses concerning the

destinies of Israel not disputed or
explained by Rationalists or Essay-
ists.

12. Messianic Prophecy— The real ques-

tion at issue: "Whether the New
Testament or German critics are to
be our guides in interpreting proph-
ecy?
13. Variety and diversity of opinions in
the German Kationalist School un-
bounded.

n.

i.\

Doctrine cf our Lord and the Apos-
tles.

In citing or applying passages of the
prophecies, attention must be paid
to the mind and intention of the
speaker or writer.
1C. Our Lord, and, after Him, the Apos-
tles, lay down the principle that past
history may represent that which is
to happen hereafter.

17. Prophecies which our Lord and the

Apostles interpret as specially
spoken in reference to Christ and
Christianity— Belief of orthodox
writers and Rationalist divines that
Christ claimed to be the Messiah
foretold by the Prophets.

18. Genuineness of the Book of Daniel.

19. Genuineness of Isaiah xl.-xlvi.

20. Interpretation of Isaiah liii.

21. Conclusion.

PROPHECY

1. Hebrew prophecy, like the Hebrew people,
stands without parallel in the history of the world.
Other nations have had their oracles, diviners, augurs,
soothsayers, necromancers. The Hebrews alone have
possessed prophets, and a prophetic literature. It is
useless, therefore, to go to the manticism of the heathen
to get light as to the nature of Hebrew prophecy.* To
follow the Eabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies is just as vain. The only reliable sources of
information on the subject are the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament, They contain documents
written when the voice of prophecy still was heard,
and it would be strange indeed to interpret coeval tes-
timonies by theories devised by heathenized Eabbis,f
nearly two thousand years after Hebrew prophecy had
ceased. Even a novice in the study of the Bible per-
ceives the falsehood of the Rabbinic assertions, that the
prophetic gift dwells only in a man who is learned,
powerful, and rich ; and that no man can attain to it
except by study, combined with a certain requisite
mental conformation.^: The attempt to explain pro-
phetic inspiration by the phenomena of animal magnet-
ism, seems to be still farther removed from sobriety of

* Yitringa, Tvpus doctr. prophet., in ' Observations Sacne,' lib. vii. p.
4 ; Carpzov, ' Introd. ad Libr. Bibl. V. T.,' Part iii., p. 7 ; Knobel, ' Prophetis-
mus der Hebriier,' i. 21 ; C. I. Nitsch, ' System der Christlichen Lebre, p.
8S; Tholuck, ' Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen,' p. 1, 73.

t Maimonides and his school, whom Smith and others follow, departed
from the ancient tradition, and endeavoured to remodel Judaism according
to the Greek philosophy with which they became acquainted through Arab
translations. Maimonides himself is remarkable for his determined effort to
eliminate the supernatural from the Old Testament, and may in truth be re-
garded as the father of Rationalist Theology.

X ' Doctor Perplexorum,' p. ii. c. 8. Buxtorfs Translation, p. 284: Hil-
choth Yesode Hattorah,' c. vii. ; Salvador, ' Institutions do Moise, l. p.
192-107.

98

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IIL

judgment, and Christian reverence.* From the Old
Testament alone, illustrated by the New, is it possible
to learn the nature of prophecy and the prophetic office.
To interpret the prophetic writings with accuracy, a
familiar acquaintance with the original language is
necessary. But a correct idea of the prophet's work
and office, and of the nature of prophecy in general,
may be obtained from any ordinary translation of the
Old Testament by any intelligent reader. The student
of the English Bible may not be able to explain the
meaning of a rare Hebrew word, or an obscure and
doubtful passage, nor to perceive beauties and peculi-
arities, observable only in the original. He must also
occasionally miss the force of particular expressions,
and sometimes put up with an incorrect rendering.
But he can, without any Hebrew, understand the char-
acter and history of Moses or Elijah, and know that
Elijah foretold a drought, or Elisha a sudden plenty :
that Micaiah was a true prophet, and the son of Che-
naanah an impostor, just as easily and correctly as
Gesenius, or Ewald, or Bunsen.

For this no modern criticism is necessary, and in
such matters no reader of the Authorized Yersion ought
to allow himself to be mystified or silenced by an ap-
peal to foreign critics, mucb less to be disturbed in his
faith, as if he could not apprehend the general teaching
of the Bible without profound knowledge of the Semitic
dialects, and the latest results of German criticism.
All these things are good in their place, but the great
and essential outlines of Divine truth, whether in refer-
ence to Deity, or piety, or morality, or prophecy, are
perceptible without them ; and it would be just as
reasonable to assert that without these things we can-
not understand the Ten Commandments, as to tell the

* " The word which we, after the LXX., translate Prophets, means in the
Hebrew, Inspired. Their original designation was Seers, men who saw.
Clairvoyance (the so-called magnetic sight) and prophesying in the ecstatic
state were of remote antiquity amongst the Jews and their neighbours ; and
Joseph, a man of a waking spirit, who, as a growing youth, possessed a
natural gift of second sight,' was able as man to see visions in his cup, just as
the Arab boy in Cairo still sees them in his bowl."— Baron Bunsen, Gott in
der GescMcAte, p. 141.

Essay III.] PE0PHECY. gg

reader of the Bible in the vernacular, that he cannot
grasp the scope of prophecy, or know whether it has
been fulfilled, until he has spent years in the study of
Hebrew and of modern commentators. The essential
features of prophetic truth are too boldly drawn to be
hidden by the veil of translation, and have been as
plain and visible in all ages to the Greek, the Syrian,
and the Arab, as to the polyglot critic of the nine-
teenth century. A knowledge of the Hebrew text,
indeed, enables its possessor at once to reject such
cavils as those lately revived,* that the Hebrew words
in Ps. ii. 12 for " Kiss the Son," ought to be trans-
lated " "Worship purely," or that the Hebrew word for
" pierce," in Ps. xxii. 17 ought to be rendered " Like
a lion," or that in. Isaiah ix. 6. (Heb. 5), the words
" Mighty God " ought to be "A strong and mighty
one." But the English reader still sees from the con-
text, in spite of these alterations, that the 2nd Psalm
speaks of* an universal King, greater than David, that
the 22nd Psalm portrays one persecuted to death by
man, delivered by God, after whose deliverance " Ail
the ends of the earth remember themselves and turn
unto the Lord," and that in Isaiah ix., the prophet
speaks of a marvellous child, who is also " The Ever-
lasting Father, of the increase of whose government
there shall be no end, to order and establish his king-
dom forever ; " words amply sufficient to teach the
reader that Isaiah spake of no mere man.f The He-
brew student is astonished, in the present state of Bib-
lical learning, to see such objections resuscitated. lie
knows that the translation " Worship purely " was
invented by Rabbinic controversialists ; that the ver-
sion " Kiss the Son " is defended even by such an
opponent of Christianity as Aben Ezra amongst the
Rabbis, and by De Wette amongst the Rationalists ;
and adopted by Moses Mendelssohn, Eiirst, and his
fellow translators, who have " Huldigt dem Sohne : "

* * Essays and Reviews,' p. 68, 69.

t Luther, who translates " Kraft, Held," had no doubts as to the right
interpretation of the passage

100 AIDS TO FAITH. [EssiY III.

and that the ancient Jews interpreted this Psalm of
the Messiah'-* — that the rendering " Mighty God " is
adopted and defended by Ilitzig and Knobel.f But,
without depreciating the value of Hebrew learning and
criticism, it may be safely asserted, that the nature
and teaching of prophecy may be collected from any
tolerable version : and, therefore, the Apostles, guided
from above, did not perplex the Gentiles by discuss-
ing the differences between the LXX. and the Hebrew
Text, but wisely used, and sanctioned the use of that
Greek Version, which they found providentially pre-
pared, already partially known amongst the heathen,
and at that time regarded with reverence by the Jews.
They understood how Divine Truth may be appre-
hended by the unlearned in a translation, and hidden
from the wise and prudent with all their knowledge
of the original.*]: With regard to Hebrew prophecy,
there are three things equally perceptible in the origi-
nal and in the versions, and at present specially requir-
ing attention. These are : — the supernatural mission of
the Prophets, their power to predict future events, and
their announcements of a coming Saviour.

2. A prorjhet is a man specially called and sent by
God to communicate a Divine revelation.§ This is
apparent in the first place from the names given to
those Divine messengers. They are called l^rophets^

* This is confessed even by Rashi, in the 11th century, who says, " Our
Rabbis interpreted this Psalm of the Messiah;" to which was added in the
older copies of his commentary, " But in order to answer the heretics, it is
better to interpret it of David," words still found in the commentary on the
xxist Psalm.

t Knobcl's reasons for rejecting the translation "strong and mighty one,"
are thus expressed : — " Because bx never occurs as an adjective, and if ad-
jective, ought to be after *)l'33. The phrase 112:} ^X 'mighty God' occurs
x. 21. Elsewhere also TifiS is adjective to ^N, as e. g. Dcut. x. 17; Jcr.
xxxii. IS." — 'Commentary on Isaiah,' p. 73.

X Matt. xi. 25.

§ Et hue forte respexerunt Patres ecclesise cum Prophctas QeoAoyovs,
rerum divinarum consult os dixere. Ita Pseudo-Dionysius, cap. 8, de Cool.
Ilicrarchia, p. 95. rcou Oeo\6ycci> efs, 6 Zaxapias, &c in quern lo-
cum ita commentatur Pachymeres, p. 101. robs Upobs Trpocp^ras Qeo\6yovs
tprialv, &s Aoyovs Geou i)p.1u i^ayy eAAovTus. Carpzov, 'Ititrod. ad Lib. Bibl.
V. T., Part iii. p. 4.'

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY.

101

seers, men of God, men of the Spirit. The Hebrew
word for prophet (Nabi) is, according to its etymology,
supposed by some to signify " an inspired person ; "
by others, with more probability, " An utterer or an-
nouncer." * Its meaning, and that of the English word
prophet as used in the Old Testament, are fully ex-
plained by a comparison of two passages, in the book
of Exodus : the first, vii. 1, " See I have made thee a
God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy
prophet." The second, iv. 16, "And he shall speak
for thee (A. V. be thy spokesman), and thou, thou
shalt be to him for a God." What is prophet in the
first is mouth in the second. Moses was to be as God
to Aaron, Aaron as prophet, or mouth, or spokesman
to Moses ; Moses to communicate to Aaron, and Aaron
to declare the message to Pharaoh and the people.
According to this, prophet means the declarer or inter-
preter of the Divine will. He is one who does not
speak of himself {a^ eavrov), the workings of his own
mind, but declares the mind and will of God, and
speaks what he receives from without.f

3. The title " Seer "% refers rather to the mode of
receiving the Divine communication than to its utter-
ance to others. It is derived from ^Tumb. xii. 6, " If
there be a prophet among you, I, the Loed, will make
myself known to him in a vision (sight, rj«*i»)." The
/Seer is therefore one who receives a Divine communica-
tion in a vision. His vision is not the offspring of his
own mind, but the Lokd makes himself known (siirn)

* Carpzov, ' Introd. ad Lib. Bibl. V. T.,' Part iii., p. 3. See Gesenius,
'Thesaurus;' Winer's edition of ' Simonis Lexicon;' Knobel's 'Prophetis-
mus,' i. 103; Bleek, 'Einleitung in das alte Testament,' p. 412; Tholuck,
'Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen,' p. 24.

t Heidegger says, "JO^D proprie est omnis vcrborum alienorum, ex
alieno, non proprio nutu et voluntate pronunciator, orator, qui, ut R. D.
Kiinchi loquitur, Echo ad instar, nihil profert aut profatur, nisi quod prius
accepit." 'Exerc. Bibl.' viii. § 27. Augustine, "Nihil aliud esse Prophetam
Dei, nisi enunciatorem verborum Dei hominibus." Carpzov, ibid., p. 8.
Comp. Spinoza, ' Tractat, Theolog. Polit.' c. 1, who is, with regard to proph-
ecy, more candid than the Essayists.

% For this there are two Hebrew words used, but which are equivalent in
sense. They are both found in Isai. xxx. 10, " which say to the Seers (c\\k")
see not, and to the prophets (lit. Seers, enn) prophesy not (see not) unto
us."

102

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay L

to tlic prophet. * It is something received from with-
out. " Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord
(mma)" (Lam. ii. 9). But the word " vision " does not
necessarily imply ecstasy or symbolic representation.
It is often equivalent to " The word of the Lokd," as,
in 1 Sam. iii. 1, " The word of the Lord was precious
in those days ; there was no open vision ("pTn)." Sam-
uel was a Seer, but " the Lord revealed himself to
Samuel by the word of the Lord " (1 Sam. iii. 21). So
the first chapter of Isaiah, which is destitute of all sym-
bolic imagery, is called " The vision (-ptn) of Isaiah ; "
whilst the second chapter has as its title, " The word
that Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw (nm)."*

4. The designation " man of God/' also implies in-
timacy, communion with God, or commission from
Him, as the similar phrases, " men of David,5' " men
of Hezekiah," meant those who were in attendance on
those monarch s, whom they employed ; and, in this
sense, the prophets are called " the servants of Jeho-
vah," and " the messengers of God " (2 Chron. xxxvi.
16).

5. The phrase " man of the Spirit, rrn " (Hos. ix.
7), explains the agency by which the communication
came, namely, by the Spirit of God ; as St. Peter says,
" Prophecy came not at any time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spake, being borne away (fapofievoi)
by the Holy Ghost " (2 Pet. i. 21). The Old Testa-
ment also makes this impetus of the Spirit the essence
of prophecy. In Numb. xi. is related the appointment
of the seventy elders to assist Moses. The Lord says,
" I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will
put it upon them ; " and, accordingly, in the 25th
verse, it is said, " The Lord came down in a cloud, and
spake unto him, and took of the Spirit that was upon
him, and gave it to the seventy elders ; and it came to
pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they proph-
esied and did not cease." In like manner, with re-
gard to Eldad and Medad, " The Spirit (rrnn) rested
upon them . . . and they prophesied in the camp."

* Comp. Ps. lxxxix. 20 ; Amos i. 1 ; Obad. i. 1 ; Hab. ii. 2, 3 ; Nahum, i. 1.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. 103

That which caused these two men, as well as the sev-
enty elders, to prophesy, was the resting of the Spirit
upon them, and, therefore, Moses makes this resting of
the Spirit equivalent to the gift of prophecy. " Would
God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that
the Loud would put his Spirit upon them." * From
this passage alone we learn, 1st, That it is the resting
of the Spirit of the Lord upon a man that makes that
man a prophet. It was not the sp>irit of Moses, but the
Spirit that was upon Moses, that was given to the sev-
enty elders, that which Moses himself calls " the Spirit
of the Lord." "We learn, in the next place, that it is
the Lord who gives the Spirit. Moses was not able to
confer it, and it was given altogether independently of
Moses to the two men, not present at the tabernacle.
The persons upon whom it was conferred, did not choose
themselves, and did not take the gift by their own will.
Similar instruction is derived from the history of Saul.
Samuel (1 Sam. x. 6) said to him, " The Spirit of the
Loud will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy
with them .... and when they came thither to the
hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the
Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among
them." It does not appear that he had any previous
qualifications, or preparations, or training, as required
by Maimonides ; nor yet his servants (1 Sam. xix. 20),
of whom it is said, " The Spirit of God was upon the
messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied." And
so, when he came himself on that occasion, certainly in
no pious frame of mind, the Spirit came on him also,
and lie, like his messengers, prophesied involuntarily.
They were (pepc/jievoi, borne away by the Holy Ghost,
just as the wicked Balaam prophesied when " the
Spirit of God came upon him," and Caiaphas unwit-
tingly uttered a Divine oracle concerning the vicarious
death of the Lord. " And this spake he not of himself,
a<f> kavrov, but being High Priest that year, he prophe-
sied " (John xi. 51).f

* Compare Joel ii. 28. In the Heb. Text, iii. 1.

t Comp. 2 Sam. xxiii. 2 ; 1 Kings, xxii. 24 ; 2 Chron. xxir. 20 ; Isai. lxi.
1 ; Jer. i. 9 ; Ezek. xi. 5; Joel ii. 21) ; (Heb. iii. 2) ; Mic. iii. 8, &c, &c.

2Q4 AIDS TO FAITH. |Ebsay III.

6. This view is confirmed by the Scripture contrast
of the false prophet. He is described as one who is
not sent by the Lord, and who has not the Spirit of
God, but speaks out of his own heart his own imagina-
tions. " They speak a vision of their own heart, and
not out of the mouth of the Lord ; I sent them not, nor
commanded them."* a They prophesy out of their own
hearts — they follow their own spirit, and have seen
nothing, they have seen vanity (&wj and lying divi-
nation, saying, The Lord saith ; and the Lord hath not
sent them ; and they have made others to hope that
they would confirm (fulfil, d^V) the word.55 f And,
therefore, even the Great Prophet of the Church dwells
frequently upon the fact that He is sent, and that His
doctrine is not His own. " My doctrine is not mine,
but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be from God, iic
tov Geou, or whether I speak of myself, air ifiavTov.
He that speaketh of himself, deft eavTov, seeketh his
own glory.":): As, therefore, a true prophet is one who
is sent by God, who runs not of himself, upon whom
the Spirit of God rests, who speaks the word of God
and not his own ; and as there were pretenders, whom
God did not send, whose words were not inspired by
His Spirit, a test, whereby one could be distinguished
from the other, was necessary both for the satisfaction
of the prophet himself, and for the protection of the
people from imposture. To have been trained in the
schools of the prophets (for a time there were such
schools §) was not enough to constitute a man a prophet.
The prophetic commission could not be given by the
schoolmaster, nor could the doctrines of men, or their
instruction, communicate a Divine message, so as to

* Jer. xxiii. 16, 21, S2, and xiv. 14, Ac.

t Ezek. xiii. 2-0.

% John vii. 10-13 ; comp. Isai. lxi.

§ " Concerning the origin, arrangements, and duration of the so-called
schools of the prophets, no detailed or circumstantial information is found in
the Old Testament. Schools of the prophets are mentioned only in the
histories of the prophets Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, that is from 1100-900,
which period must therefore he regarded as the time of their existence."
Knobel, Prophetkmus, ii. 30, 50. What imaginative historians have written
on this subject is, therefore, of little value.

Essay III.] PROPHECY. jq5

make the speaker's word the word of the Lord. Neither
Deborah nor Huldah had thus received the prophetic
call. Indeed, it does not appear that any of the great
prophets had been trained in those schools. Nothing
less than an outward, clear, unmistakable call of God
could satisfy the mind and conscience of the prophet
himself. Neither inward persuasion, nor dream, nor
ecstasy, was in itself sufficient. Moses was awake and
in full possession of all his faculties when he saw a
bush burning but not consumed, and heard the voice
of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. Samuel
thought that Eli called, and went twice to the aged
priest, before he knew that it was the Lord's voice ;
and was, therefore, fully roused from slumber before
he received the Divine message. Isaiah's eyes were
opened to see the Lord on his throne, and his ears to
hear the words " Whom shall I send, and who will go
for us ? " Jeremiah objected his youth, and did not
accept the commission until the Lord put forth his
hand and touched his mouth. Ezekiel felt that " the
hand of the Lord was upon him." Amos was a herds-
man, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, and the Lord
took him " as he followed the flock," and said, " Go,
prophesy unto my people Israel." There was a super-
natural call. A specific message, also, was delivered,
and therefore the prophet was able to say, " Hear ye
the word of the Lord," " Thus saith the Lord." Even
after this external and supernatural call, every time the
prophet uttered a new oracle, it was the result of a new
communication, and a special command. He was still
unable to prophesy at will. He might inquire of the
Lord and ask counsel, as Moses did in the case of the
Sabbath-breaker, or of Zelophehad's daughters, but had
no permanent habilitation to declare the will of God.
Without this supernatural call, and without this spe-
cific message, no one can, according to Scripture idiom,
without great confusion of mind, or wilful and dishon-
est abuse of language, be said to possess anything like
prophetic inspiration. The Apostles of the New Testa-
ment, called directly by the Lord Jesus Christ, moved

106 AID5 T^ FAITH. [Essay III.

by His Holy Spirit, and entrusted with a specific mes-
sage, were and may be called prophets in the true sense

of the word, for they were able to affirm that the I
pel proclaimed of them was "not of man, but by
revelation of Jesus Christ ; n and they communicated it

M not in words, which man's wisdom teacheth, but
which the Holy Ghost teacheth." But to speak of

ts, ancient or modern, or Philosophers, or Lawgiv-
-s being inspired, like Moses or Isaiah, is simply to
confound things Divine and human, and to manifest
great mistiness of apprehension, or daring profanity of
spirit. It is just as contrary to Scriptural statement,"-"
and as revolting to Christian reverence, as to identify
the prophetic character and calling with that of the
demagogues of Greeee.f Poets and Philosophers exer-
cise the high natural gifts bestowed by God, according
to the movings of their will or the impulse vt' their gen-
apply, and sometimes abuse them, according to
the state of their hearts ; but do not pretend to any
external call from God, nor claim for their words the
reverence due to the word of the Almighty. The He-
brew prophets announced themselves as God's messen-

. claimed obedience and reverence for their message
as the word of God, and therefore carried with them
credentials for the satisfaction of the people. These
credentials were, according to the Hebrew Scriptures,
miracle and prediction.^ To accredit Moses as His
messenger to the children of Israel, He empowered him

* " At quamvis scientia naturalis divina sit, ejus tamen propagatores non
possunt vocari prophetic."— Spinoza, Tractat. Theoloff. Pi " m. iii.

p. 16.

+ Leo ' Vorlcsungen.' 15 . ] ; ; Berlin, 1828; Salvador, as above. | .

X This is admitted even by D. F. Strauss : "To accredit his Divine mis-
sion to the people, God enabled Moses to perform certain acts beyond ordi-
nary human power; and Moses refers to this to prove that he did not come

of himself but was sent by God Hand in hand with miracle, prediction

appears in Biblical history as a credential of Revelation. Thus in the Old
Testament God gives Moses a prediction, the fulfilment of which should

certify his Divine mission | Exod. iii. 12) In the case of the prophets the

occurrence of wonderful events which they had predicted is the proof of their
Divine commission I Kings xvii. 1, xrii The prophets also, not

rarely, foretell the occurrence of some event, soon to happen, that its occur-
rence may be a si^n, that what they have predicted concerning the distant
future is from God 1 1 Sam. ii. 84, x. 7, and 1 K I E

Isai. vii. 2; Jer. xliv. 29)." — G ■■ , vol. i. p. -

Essay III] PROPHECY. 10;

to make throe superhuman manifestations of power, say-
ing, u If they will not believe thee, neither hearken to
the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the
voice of the latter sign." And therefore the prophet
like unto Moses, also appealed to J lis works as greater
testimony than that of John the Baptist,* and says,
" lt'l had not done among them the works which none
other man did, they had not had sin, luit now have
they both seen and hated both me and my Father."
The Law of Moses also provided another criterion of a
true or false prophet, in the fulfilment or non-fulfilment
of his word, " When a prophet speaketh in the name
of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass,
that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken"
(I)eut. xviii. 2*2). To this Jeremiah alludes when he
says, "The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when
the word of the prophet shall come io pass, then shall
the prophet he known, that the Lord hath truly sent
him " (Jer. xxviii. 9).

7. To declare the will of God, and deliver His mes-
sage, whether it regarded the past, the present, or the
future, was the prophet's groat duty. And therefore,
when the Jewish lawgiver was communicating moral
or ceremonial precepts, received from God, and when
the Messiah, in his Sermon on the Mount, was explain*
irig the spirituality of the Law, they wore, in the strict
sense of the "worn, prophesying just as much as when
Moses predicted the destinies of Israel, and the Lord
foretold the destruction and treading down of Jerusalem.
To have received a call and message direct from God,
and to deliver it, constituted the essence of prophetism.
But if we are to form our idea from the Scriptures, we
must admit that the Hebrew people believed that the
prophets were endowed with, or could attain to, super-
human knowledge, for the benefit and advantage of
His people. This belief was rooted in their conception
of the Divine character. Whether we take the Hebrew
Scriptures as inspired or not, it is an incontrovertible
fact that the fundamental idea of the Hebrew religion

* John xv. •_>[; oomp. Matt xi. 1-5.

108 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

is that Jehovah is a God who reveals Himself to his
creatures; that He has not left the human race to
grope their way to the regions of religion or morality
as they best can, but that from the beginning He has
taken His children by the hand, cared for their welfare,
made known to them His will, and marked out for them
the way to happiness. This idea runs through all the
books of the Old Testament, — Law, History, Psalms,
Prophecy, — and is taken up in the New Testament,
where is the fullest revelation of the love of our
Heavenly Father to man. But the Hebrew believed
not only in God as one who reveals Himself for the
benefit of the race, but as the loving and watchful
Father, who superintended all the everyday concerns of
each individual, and who, though He dwelt in the high
and holy place, yet had regard to the lowly, and
considered nothing too small or insignificant for His
care. This is evident in the prayer of Abraham's ser-
vant to be guided to Rebekah, in the increase of Jacob's
cattle, in Leah's fruitful ness, in the answer to Hannah's
prayer, not to mention many similar and well-known
traits in the lives of God's ancient saints. As, there-
fore, the Hebrew people, high and low, regarded the
prophet as a messenger from God, enlightened and in-
structed by the Holy Spirit, they ascribed to him a
supernatural knowledge and the power to give in-
formation not attainable by human reasoning or sagacity
— in fact the same power possessed by the High Priest
of procuring from God a miraculous response by means
of the Urim and Thummim : and as they believed in
God as their Father, they trusted that He was interested
in all their troubles and anxieties, and would not con-
sider their temporal concerns too insignificant for His
gracious consideration. Hence it is recorded that Re-
bekah went to inquire of the Lord respecting the subject
of her anxiety. David inquired of the Lord, by means
of the ephod, whether he should smite the Philistines
and save Keilah; and again, whether the men of Keilah
would deliver him into the hands of Saul ; and received
answers from the Lord. So Saul's servants thought

EssatIII.] PKOPHECY. 1Q9

they miglit go to Samuel and inquire concerning the
lost asses. In like manner King Jehoshaphat wished to
inquire of the Lord, by means of a prophet, before he
ventured into the battle against the Assyrians. And
again, when he and Jehoram were in difficulties from
want of water, he asked, "Is there not a prophet of the
Lord here that wo may inquire of the Lord by him ? "
Even ungodly men like Zedekiah (Jer. xxi. 2, and
xxxvii. 17), and the elders of Israel (Ezek. xiv. 1 — 7),
or heathens like king Benhadad (2 Kings, viii. 7, 8, &c),
believed in this power, and were glad, when occasion
required, to avail themselves of it. And there is not
only no intimation that they erred in making such in-
quiries, but Joshua and the men of Israel are represented
as having done wrong because they made peace with
the Gibeonites, and " asked not counsel at the mouth
of the Lord" (Josh. ix. 14). And when Ahaziah sent
to Ekron to inquire of Baal-zebub, " the angel of the
Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet
the messengers of the King of Samaria, and say unto
them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that
ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron \ "
Indeed, some Christian commentators of great name,
as well as some of the Eabbis, think that in the Law
God has made special provision for this sort of inquiry
when He forbids them to be diviners or consulters with
familiar spirits, and promises them a prophet like Moses
to reveal His will (Dent, xviii. 10 — 19). It is certain
that Isaiah insists on the duty of inquiring of the Lord
when he says, "And when they shall say unto you,
Inquire of the familiar spirits, and of wizards who peep
and mutter: Should not a people inquire of their God ?
For the living, should they inquire of the dead?"
(viii. 19.)*

In some of the cases just mentioned inquiry is made
respecting the future, and it is evident that David and

* Lowth, and after him, Knobel, translate the last clause, " Instead of the
living; [God] should they inquire of the dead [idols?]," but contrary to the
parallelism. The prophet is remonstrating against the practice of inquiring
of the spirits of departed men. -In is the spirit of a dead man, and there-
fore CT172 must refer to something similar.

HO AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III.

Jehoshaphat, as well as Zedekiah, believed that through
the priest or the prophet they could receive from God,
respecting contingencies, answers which the Divine pre-
science could alone supply; that is, that through the
Divine help the priest or the prophet could predict
future events. This faith rested upon the doctrine of
God as taught in the Law, and exemplified in the whole
of their previous history. Before there were prophets
God Himself predicted the future. The announcement
of the flood to !Noah and the limitation of the day of
grace to 120 years* are predictions. Noah knew the
future of the human race, and by the Divine instruction
wras enabled to provide against the coming calamity.
The declaration, at a time when Abraham was child-
less, that his posterity should be afflicted, in a strange
land for 400 years, but that their enemies should be
punished and they come forth with great wealth, was
clearly a prediction. Jacob is represented as having
on his death-bed predicted what should befall his pos-
terity "in futurity of days" (own r»i"Mwa). Joseph's
interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams was a prediction of
the seven years of plenty and of famine, and came from
God as well as the dreams. "What God is about to do
he showeth unto Pharaoh " (Gen. xl. 28). It is recorded
of most of the prophets mentioned in the historic books
that they uttered predictions. Deborah foretold the
fate of Sisera. The man of God announced to Eli the
judgments coming upon his family, and the death of
Ills sons in one day. Samuel confirmed this prediction
and declared its certain fulfilment, and it is remarked
" that the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground.
And all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, knew that
Samuel was accredited (or verified pso) for a prophet
to the Lord." Micaiah foretells the defeat of the allied
armies of Judah and Israel, and rests his prophetic
pretensions upon the fulfilment of what he had an-

* The words " Yet his days shall be 120 years" do not refer to a diminu-
tion of the long life of the antediluvians, nor to the subsequent measure of
human life, but to the length of the day of grace, given them to repent.
Such is the interpretation of the Targums, Luther, Calvin, and many of the
best modern commentators. See Delltsch on Genesis, p. 237, 8.

Essay III.3 PEOPHECY. j j j

nounced. "If thou return at all in peace, the Lord
hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O
people, every one of you." Elijah predicted that there
should be no rain but according to his word, the death
of Jezebel, the extermination of Ahab's posterity.
Elisha foretold the overthrow of the Moabites, the three
defeats of the Syrians. All these things, as well as the
birth of Josiah, and the continuance of Jehu's posterity
on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation, are re-
lated as predictions, in the ordinary sense of the word,
— as supernatural communications from the Lord, and
the fulfilment specially noticed.

It may indeed be said, and has been said, that these
predictions and the narratives connected with them are
mythical narrations, written after the events when the
historic substrata had had time to be transmuted into
the supernatural. But that, if true, would not alter the
fact that the Hebrews believed in the power of the
prophets to predict events by supernatural aid from on
high ; that this belief is inseparably connected with
their ideas of the Divine Being, and everywhere visi-
ble in the historical books from Genesis to Kehemiah ;
in fact that the power of predicting future events is
one of the essential features in the character of a
prophet. And as it is incontrovertibly a part of the
popular belief, so it is the doctrine of the prophets
themselves, as recorded in their writings. It is hardly
possible to open a page of any book of the prophets on
which there is not a prediction. " By far the greatest
portion of the prophetic discourses consists in delinea-
tions of the future, or predictions referring partly to the
Jehovah people, and therefore to the kingdoms of Israel
and Judah, partly to foreign nations who came in con-
tact with the Hebrews, .... partly to individuals of
the former, seldom of the latter."- Amos lays it down
as an axiom that the Lord reveals to the prophets his
purposes before they are realized. " Surely the Lord
God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret ("mo)
to his servants the prophets." (Amos iii. 7.) Upon

* Knobcl's ' Prophetisnius,' i. 293.

112 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay II f.

which, Hitzig says : "The prophet predicts the coming
evil, which is always an ordinance of Jehovah; for
Jehovah makes him acquainted beforehand with that
which He has decreed." Isaiah makes the prediction
of future events a distinguishing characteristic and pre-
rogative of Deity, and therefore a proof that the God
of Israel is the true and living God. " Remember the
former things of old : for I am God and there is none
else: 1 am God, and there is none like me. Declaring
futurity (minx) from former time, and from ancient
times the things that are not yet done " (xlvi. 9, 10) ;
upon which words Knobel thus comments: "The bet-
ter view consists in the knowledge that Jehovah, and
none besides, is God, that He is God and nothing like
Him. To this view they can easily come by remem-
bering the former things, that is, the prophecies for-
merly given, which are now being fulfilled (xlii. 9).
These prove Jehovah's foreknowledge, and thereby
His Godhead." In like manner Isaiah makes the
want of predictions amongst idolaters a proof that
their gods are no gods. " Produce your cause, bring
forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.
Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall
happen : Let them show the former things what they
be, that we may consider them and know the latter
end of them; or declare for us things for to come.
Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we
may know that ye are gods" (xli. 21-23) ; where Gese-
nius says, "A new challenge to the idols as in verse 1,
&c, again with a reference to Cyrus, but also with a
reference to former predictions of the prophets, such as
the heathen had none to show." KnobePs words are
still stronger: "Let them bring forth their proofs,
especially "that one which rests upon correct prediction
of the future ; for the foreknowledge of the future is
the peculiar attribute of God, and proves Deity, on
which account it was also the credential of the true
prophet. (Deut. xviii. 21. Jer. xxviii. 9.) And, on the
contrary, the idols never were able, nor are they now,
to announce the future. They should declare the

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. j j g

things to come hereafter, that is, what should after-
ward happen, and Jehovah will see and recognise that
they are gods, namely, when their prediction is accom-
plished." In these places, and many more, it is taught
that Jehovah gives predictions to His servants the
prophets, and also that He fulfils them. "He con-
firmeth the word of His servants, and performeth the
counsel of His messengers" (Isai. xliv. 26); that by so
doing He proves not only that the prophets are true
prophets, but that He Himself is the true God. "We
have in fact the same proof of the truth of Divine Rev-
elation that has been urged in modern times from ful-
filled prophecy, and which has the highest possible
sanction in the words of our Lord, "And now I have
told you before it come to pass, that when it is come
to pass ye might believe." (John xiv. 29 : comp. xiii.
0, and xvi. 4.)

8. It is evident that the Hebrew people believed
that their prophets could predict the future. The
prophets themselves affirm that they have the power
and utter predictions. Were they impostors, or did
they deceive themselves ? That they were impostors,
is not believed by those Rationalists wrho have given
most attention to this subject, as Gesenius, Ewald, and
Knobel, and is disproved by their doctrine and their
life. Concerning God they teach that He is One, the
Lord, Creator of the heavens and the earth, Everlast-
ing, Almighty, Omniscient, Free, All wise, Holy, a
righteous Judge, a merciful Saviour, the Governor of
the world, forgiving iniquity and sin.* Their notion
of the religion acceptable to Him is also equally free
from fanaticism and formality. They denounce those
who " draw near to God with their lips, but remove .
their heart far from Him." They teach that to reform
the life is better than external demonstrations. "To
what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices ? . . .
Wash you ; make you clean ; put away the evil of

* See Isai. xl. 23. xliv. G ; Jer. x. 10, xxiii. 23, 24; Isai. xiv. 24, 27 ; Jer.
xxxii. 19, xvii. 10; Hab. i. 13; Mai. ii. 10 ; Isai. lxiv. 8; Jer. xi. 20; Joel ii.
13 ; Mic. vii. 18 ; Dau. ii. 28 ; Ezek. xxxi. 9 ; Amos iii. 6 ; Ezek. xviii. 4 ; Hos.
xiii. 14, &c, &c.

114 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III.

your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil,
learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed ;
judge the fatherless; plead for the widow" (Isaiah i.
11 — 17). "I will have mercy, not sacrifice." They
proclaim that honesty, mercy, and humility are the
weightiest matters of the Law. " What doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God ? " (Mic. vi. 8.) to
preach such doctrine was their business ; and boldly
to reprove all who lived in opposition to it, whether
kings, or priests, or people, was their practice, and this
without fee or reward, for they received nothing for
their prophesying, but often exposed themselves to
persecution and death. They sought not wealth, or
honour, or favour, or ease. They were temperate, self-
denying, patient, valiant for the truth, leaning upon
God as their stay, and looking to God alone for their
reward. They were neither morose ascetics, nor un-
lettered fanatics. Married and living amongst the
people, in cottages and in courts, they discharged the
ordinary duties of citizens. They cultivated letters,
and have left a literature unique in the history of the
world; if judged according to a human standard, un-
surpassed in genius, sublimity, grandeur ; but in purity
and morality unequalled by any nation in any age.
This prophetic order beginning, if reckoned from Sam-
uel, nearly 400 years before the birth of Rome, and
closing when the bloom of Grecian genius was only
appearing, is, when compared with the state of the
world around them, a phenomenon as wonderful as the
power of prediction which they claimed. The best
days of Greece and Eomo can furnish no heroes, pa-
triots, or moral teachers to compare with this long and
wonderful succession of holy, disinterested, bold re-
provers of vice and preachers of virtue, unambitious
examples of genuine patriotism, living for the glory of
God, and the good of man ; whose writings are so im-
bued with imperishable and universal truth, that for
nearly twenty-four centuries after the death of the last
of the goodly fellowship, they have continued and still

Essay III.] PROPHECY. 115

continue to touch the . "hearts, and influence the faith,
the thoughts and lives of the wisest, greatest, and most
excellent of the human race. That such men could be
deceivers, or that imposture could have exercised a
power so enduring, is impossible. That they could
have been self-deceiving enthusiasts is equally incredi-
ble. Neither their doctrine, nor their lives, nor their
writings savour of enthusiasm, nor can they be ac-
counted for as mere ebullitions of genius. Why did
not the poetic inspiration and colossal intellect of
Greece produce similar results? Why did not Eurip-
ides prophesy? Why did Plato never rise to moral
purity ? * "It is because of the theocracy," say modern
diviners. Moses founded a theocracy, and prophetism
was the necessary result. But this is only to remove
the difficulty one step farther back. Why did not the
Spartan, or Athenian, or Locrian lawgivers, or the
royal disciple of Egeria found a theocracy like that of
Moses? Why did not their legislations bring forth
prophets ? In a certain sense prophecy did arise out
of the original relation established between God and
Israel. The same Divine Being, who commanded the
theocracy, gave also the prophets, inspired them with
their doctrines, revealed to them the future, and ena-
bled them to utter predictions far beyond the powers
of human foreboding, sagacity, or conjecture, which by
their fulfilment, of old and in the present time, demon-
strate that they were not self-deceiving enthusiasts, but
spake as they were moved by Him who knows the
end from the beginning.

9. It has indeed been said by foreign writers, and
lately repeated in this country, that the predictions
arose out of the circumstances of the days in which the
prophets lived, and do not extend beyond the horizon

* Of all the great writers of antiquity Plato is the most striking witness
to the corruption of fallen human nature, and the propensity of the grandest
intellect, when left to itself, to extenuate the foulest and most odious vice.
In nothing does the superiority of Hebrew ethics shine out more brightly.
See Wuttke, « Handbuch der Christlichen Sittenlehre, pp. 55-67. At the
same time the mercy inculcated in the prophets may be favourably contrasted
with the Greek doctrine concerning slaves, incurables, cripples, exposure of
children, abortion, suicide, &c.

HQ AIDS TO FAITn. [Essay IIL

of their times. The interpreter ."cannot quote Nahum
denouncing ruin against Nineveh, or Jeremiah against
Tyre, without remembering that already the Babylonian
power threw its shadow across Asia, and Nebuchad-
nezzar was mustering his armies." * Some foreign
critics, though in the same spirit, take a different view
of the occasion of Nahum's prophecy, ascribing it to an
attempt by the Medes and their eastern allies. " This
is the remarkable expedition," says Ewald, speaking
of the Medes and their oriental confederates under
Phraortes, "which Nahum saw with his own eyes,
when, predicting the approaching end of Nineveh, he
wrote his still extant oracle ; he lived in Alqvish, some-
what farther east of the Tigris, and was therefore able,
in that place, to see the whole host as it advanced
against Nineveh." f The latter supposition, that Na-
hum lived near Nineveh, is for good reasons rejected
by Knobel, who affirms that he lived at Elkosh in Gali-
lee, and, therefore, did not see the Median power ad-
vancing against the Assyrian capital. With regard to
the relative strength of the Babylonian and Median
powers in comparison with that of the Assyrian empire
at that time, there was nothing to lead the prophet to
anticipate that either the one or the other was able to
take Nineveh, or overthrow the Assyrian monarchy,
but the contrary. According to Knobel, who, in the
eyes of Rationalists, is an unexceptionable witness,
Nahum wrote this prophecy between the years 713
and 711 b.c. Nineveh was not overthrown until about
612. $ Just about the time when Nahum wrote, or,
according to others, three or four years § later, the
Medes under Dei'oces revolted from the Assyrians, and
set up an independent monarchy. Their power at that
time could not have been very formidable, for fifty
years later, when the Median empire had been consoli-

* ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 68.

t ' Geschichte Israel's,' iii. 389. See alsoKnobel's ' Prophetismus,' ii. 212.

% According to Prideaux ; but according to Usher, G26. Weber (' Welt-
gcschichte,' i. 47) places the total destruction of Nineveh in GOG.

§ According to Knobel, the Medes revolted in the years immediately pre-
ceding 710, and made De'ioces king, and he reigned from 710 on. Comp. M.
von Niebuhr, ' Geschichte Assur's und Babel's,'' pp. 177, 178.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. j j 7

dated by the long and wise government of De'ioces, it
was still unable to cope with the Assyrians, by whom
their army was utterly defeated, their king slain, and
their capital taken. The effort of Phraortes was equally
unsuccessful, and therefore Hitzig says, " The attack
of Phraortes is not a sufficient ground [for the confident
tone of the prophecy]. The Assyrians destroyed him
and his whole host. The capital, which Ewald sup-
poses to have been vigorously besieged, does not appear
to have been approached by any danger of the kind." *
The Babylonians were just as little a match for the
Assyrians, for, some fifty years before, Esarhaddon had
seized Babylon, and reunited it to the Assyrian monar-
chy, f When, then, Galium wrote, the shadow of the
Babylonian or Median power was not such as to cause
much alarm for the existence of Nineveh. Notwith-
standing the loss of an army of 185,000 men, the As-
syrian power was still the greatest in the world ; and
whilst it was still the greatest, whilst the kingdom of
Babylon wTas still so inferior as to be unable to under-
take anything against it by itself, and was therefore
glad to seek the alliance of Hezekiah, one hundred
years before the event, Nahum predicted the siege and
utter destruction of Nineveh. " And it shall come to
pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from
thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste . . . The gates of
thy land shall be set wTide open unto thine enemies ;
the fire shall devour thy bars. Draw the waters for
the siege, fortify thy strong holds ; go into clay, and
tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln. There
shall the fire devour thee : the sword shall cut thee off,
it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm !" $ Can any
of those men who now assert that this prophecy was a
mere conjecture, tell us what will be the fate of Paris
or London one hundred years hence? They deny the
miracle of supernatural foreknowledge, and believe
what is more incredible far; that unassisted human

* Ilitzig's 'Minor Prophets,' p. 225. Comp. von Niebuhr, pp. 188, 189.
t According to Niebuhr, Sennacherib seized Babylon, and made Esarhad-
don viceroy, pp. 177, 8.
% Nahuni iii. 7, 14, 15.

HQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Ess*v 'II.

knowledge can lift the veil from futurity, and presage
the destinies of empires. Nahum is, however, not the
only prophet who uttered predictions concerning the
Assyrians. " Assur had not yet passed the Euphrates
as a conqueror, and the victorious Jeroboam still reigued
in the kingdom of Israel, when the prophetic voice of
Hosea and Amos already threatened their countrymen
with the scourge of Assyria. (Amos vi. 14, vii. 17;
Hos. x. 7, 8, xiv. 1.) Some years before the fall of
Samaria, Micah uttered these words : — " What is the
guilt of Jacob, is it not Samaria? And what are the
idol-high places of Juclah, are they not Jerusalem?
Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field,
and as plantings of a vineyard : and I will pour down
the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover
the foundations thereof." But for three years the As-
syrian was obliged to lie before the well-fortified city
before it fell. Concerning Judah also Micah uttered
the oracle: — 'Evil came down from the Lord to the
gate of Jerusalem,' * and thereupon begins the an-
nouncement of the desolation of particular country
towns of Judea. But at that time Shalmaneser passed
by the kingdom of Judah in peace, and Hezekiah con
tinned to pay his tribute. It was not until the throne
had got a new occupant in Sennacherib that he ceased
to do so, and thus brought the Assyrian host before the
gates of Jerusalem, and caused the fulfilment of the
prophecy. But long before this, when the unbelieving
Ahaz called upon Tiglath Pileser for help against Syria
and Israel, Isaiah, with prophetic eye, looking far be-
yond the then present, announced to him that through
the King of Assyria clanger should come upon him, and
his father's house, and his people, such as had not been
since the division of the kingdoms. (Isai. vii. 17, 18.)
Ahaz himself sank into a state of disgraceful Assyrian
vassalage, and, perhaps, even experienced the horrors
of war in his own land. (2 Chron. xxviii. 20.) But in

* He might hare added, "0 thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot
to the swift beast; she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion ;
for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee."

Essay III.] ■ PEOPIIECY. -. -, ^

the days of Hezekiah the word of the prophet was ful-
filled in full measure by Sennacherib."*

But the accuracy of Mi call's language and of
Isaiah's prophetic foreknowledge are worthy of atten-
tion. Micah foretells utter destruction to Samaria; to
Judah only chastisement, which should reach to the
gate of Jerusalem, but no farther. "For it is incura-
ble, every one of her blows — it (the blow) is come to
Judah. He hath reached (saa touched, or smitten) as

far as the gate of my people, to Jerusalem For

the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good ; but
evil came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem.
O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind* the chariot to the
swift beast." From the history it appears that the
word of Micah was exactly fulfilled. " In the four-
teenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib King of
Assyria came up against all the defenced cities and
took them [Lachish among the number]. And the
King of Assyria sent Kabshakeh from Lachish to Jeru-
salem with a great army." (Isaiah xxxvi. 1, &c.) The
land of Judah was overrun ; the evil reached even to
the gate of Jerusalem, for the city was invested; but,
in conformity with Micah's words, it never entered the
city — the Assyrian power was broken, and the king
returned by the way he came, as Isaiah had foretold.
There is no doubt about the predictions, or the Tact that
they were uttered before the event, nor yet about the
fulfilment. In the time of Ahaz, Isaiah, who had also
foretold the chastisement to be inflicted on Judah by
the Assyrians, expressly announced a miraculous de-
struction of the Assyrian host. " Therefore shall the
Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among his fat ones lean-
ness ; and under his glory He shall kindle a burning
like the burning of a fire. And the light of Israel shall
be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame : and it shall
burn and devour his briers in one day ; and shall con-
sume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field both
soul and body, and they shall be like the pining away
of a sick man," &c. (Isai. x. 16-19.) And, again,

* Tholuck, ' Die Propheten unci ihre Weissagungen,' pp. 83, 84.

120 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

xxx. 27-32, Isaiah also predicts that the Assyrian shall
be broken in his land at least thirty years before the
event. That the Assyrian power should be broken was
then improbable ; that it should be broken on the
mountains of Judah more improbable still, beyond
human conjecture, and yet it was accomplished. The
prediction is found Isai. xiv. 24 — 27. "The Lord of
Hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so
shall it come to pass ; and as I have purposed so shall
it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land,
and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then
shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden de-
part from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that
is purposed upon the whole earth ; and this is the hand
that is stretched out upon all nations, for the Lord of
Hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it ? And
his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? "
Modern, even sceptical, criticism assigns this fragment
to Isaiah, and considers it as a part of the prophecy
beginning at x. 5, and going on to the end of chapter
xii. The wording is remarkable. It implies miracle,
and by miracle the Assyrian host was destroyed : the
fulfilment is not only narrated in the history, but re-
corded in several Psalms, and von Niebuhr shows how,
notwithstanding the continuance of Sennacherib's em-
pire, and its prosperity under Esarhaddon, the Assyr-
ian power was then really " broken."

With regard to Assyria's successor, Babylon, there
are predictions equally sure. That one hundred and
fifty years before the event, the Babylonian captivity
was foretold in the most unequivocal and remarkable
language by Isaiah, is as certain as any. fact in history.
In the xxxixth chapter of that prophet we read that on
Hezekiah's recovery Merodach Baladan, King of Baby-
lon, sent to congratulate him. Hezekiah vainglorious-
ly exhibited to him all his wealth. Isaiah wras soon
at hand to rebuke his vanity, and announced the Lord's
purpose concerning Hezekiah's posterity. " Hear the
word of the Lord of Hosts : Behold the days come,
that all that is in thine house, and that which thy

Essay III.] PEOPHECY. 121

fathers Lave laid up in store until this day, shall be
carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith the
Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee,
which thou shalt 'beget, shall they take away : and
they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the King of
Babylon." It is certain that JSTabonassar had shaken
off the Assyrian yoke, and made Babylon an in-
dependent kingdom, and that some twelve years after
his death reigned Merodach Baladan.* The genuine-
ness of the chapter in Isaiah has never been doubted.
The circumstances of Babylon were not then such as
to raise any conjecture respecting its future greatness.
It was independent, but not superior to Assyria ; on
the contrary, as we have already said, Babylon was
soon after reduced again to Assyrian obedience.

Micah also predicted the captivity and the deliver-
ance from Babylon. Ch. ii. 10, he says, "Arise ye and
depart : for this is not your rest : Because it is polluted
it shall destroy you even with a sore destruction ; " iii.
12, he announces that Jerusalem shall be ploughed as
a field, Jerusalem become heaps, and the temple and
its place be desolate ; iv. 10, he says,- " Thou shalt go
forth out of the city, thou shalt dwell in the field, and
thou shalt go even to Babylon: there shalt thou be
delivered : there the Lord shall redeem thee from the
hand of thine enemies." This prediction is the more
remarkable, because, as we have seen, he predicts the
overrunning of the land of Judah by the Assyrians^
declares that the evil should only come to the gate of
Jerusalem ; and v. 5, 6, foretells the deliverance in the
land of Israel. " This one tr, [the Messiah, the Son of
God] shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come
into our land," and announces the wasting of the land
of Assyria, f He could not, therefore, have expected
that Assyria was to bring them to Babylon ; and still
less that at Babylon they should be delivered. Micah
prophesied before the destruction of Samaria, i.e. be-
fore 724, that is, about a hundred and forty years
before the destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, and con-

* Niebuhr, pp. 4G, 47, and 169. t Mic. i. 0, ii. 4, .", 10, vii. 13.

6

122 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

sequently about two hundred before the deliverance
from Babylon. *

10. The mention of Babylon reminds us of another
remarkable and indubitable prediction as remarkably
fulfilled, and the fulfilment of which shows the ground-
lessness of recent insinuations. One of these was no-
ticed above. "He cannot quote Jeremiah

[denouncing ruin against Tyre] without remembering
that already the Babylonian power threw its shade
across Asia, and Nebuchadnezzar was mustering his
armies." But surely the writer of these words could
not have forgotten that the ruin of Tyre by the
Chaldeans had been predicted long before the days of
Jeremiah. In the twenty-third chapter of Isaiah is
found the burden of Tyre. The siege, the interruption
of her commerce, the flight of her citizens, and the
lamentations of her mariners and her colonies, are all
graphically foretold here — and even the authors of the
ruin are named. In the thirteenth verse, A.V., we read,
" Behold the land of the Chaldeans. This people wTas not
till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the
wilderness : they set up the towers thereof, they raised
up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin."
There are various translations of this verse, f but that
the Chaldeans are predicted as the destroyers of Tyre
is admitted by some of the highest modern authorities.
Knobel says, "Behold, the land of the Chaldeans.
With the word ' Behold ' the author introduces some-
thing new to which he directs special attention. That
something is the destroyers of Tyre whom he is about
to name. Gesenius has " The sense of verse 13 is —
Behold, this people of the Chaldees, a little while ago

* Tholuck remarks well, that as the Babylonish captivity is foretold both
by Isaiah and Micah, and yet their writings admitted to be genuine, the
main objection against the genuineness of Isai. xiii. xiv. and xl.-lxvi. is re-
moved.

\ Hitzig has

Behold, the land of the Chaldeans,

The people there, that was no people.

Assur created it for the inhabitants of the desert.

They erect their castles,

Destroy her palaces,

Make her a heap of ruin.

Essay III] PE0PHECY. 123

inhabitants of the deserts, to whom the Assyrians first
assigned settled habitations and made it a people : this
hitherto insignificant people, scarcely deserving men-
tion, shall be the instrument of the destruction of the
ancient world-wide famous city of Tyre." If this be
the sense, as is generally agreed, then we have a pre-
diction far surpassing the powers of human foresight,
and not suggested by existing circumstances. The
deniers of prediction feel this, and therefore use the
most violent means to get rid of it, not scrupling to
alter the text and change the meaning of the Hebrew
words. Even the great Ewald is not above this
violence. Without a shadow of critical support he
would for " Chaldeans " substitute " Canaanites," and
interpret " Behold, the land of the Canaanites (the
Phoenicians), this people is no more, Assur has made
it a desolation ; they (the Phoenicians) erected their
country villas, they built their palaces, he made it a
ruin." I. Olshausen is guilty of still greater violence :
he would strike out of the verse a number of words at
the beginning, including, of course, " Chaldeans."
Meier proposes to substitute "Kittiim" for "Chal-
deans," and to strike out the latter part of the verse :
all which criticism Knobel unceremoniously calls
" bodenlose Willkuhr." Others would get rid of the
whole as ungenuine, not written by Isaiah, but by
some one in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. *
Knobel and Gesenius get rid of the difficulty by find-
ing the event alluded to in Shalmaneser's attempt on
Tyre, when he subdued the whole of continental
Phoenicia, but was unable to take New Tyre on
the island, and established a blockade for five years.
The Chaldeans, they say, served, and were some of the
best troops, in the Assyrian army. But this is also to
do violence to the text. The prophet does not say that
the Assyrians should destroy the city, but explicitly
and emphatically points out the Chaldeans as the miners
of Tyre. " Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This
is the people — it was not [a people], Assur founded it

* Gesenius, ' Commentary,' p. 716.

124 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III.

[the land] for the dwellers in steppes. They erected
their watch-towers ; they roused up her palaces ; they
made her a ruin." Knobel and Gesenius, in the pas-
sages quoted from their commentaries, plainly admit
this. But the only siege of Tyre by the Chaldeans
was the thirteen years' siege by Nebuchadnezzar, and
every unprejudiced mind must admit that it alone
answers to the prophet's words, and therefore receive
the prophecy as a prediction. Sooner than do this,
Knobel, who believes and proves the prophecy to be
genuine, says we must reject it as ungenuine, and
ascribe it to Jeremiah. "To assert the genuineness
of this portion, and yet to refer it to the siege of Tyre by
Nebuchadnezzar the King of the Chaldeans, an event
which happened a hundred years later, Ezek. xxvi.-
xxviii. (as Jerome, Yitringa, I. D. Michaelis, Drechsler,
Hengstenberg), is impossible, because in the time of
Isaiah there could not be a foreboding, much less a
certain and definite announcement of anything of the
kind." Such is the honesty and trustworthiness of
" the higher criticism." Better to reject a prophetic
passage, which it proves to be genuine, than admit a
prediction. Here is a plain proof that the criticism
proceeds from previous rejection of prediction, not that
the unbelief proceeds from the criticism. The critical
De Wette says the same in his Introduction to the O.
T. "The prophecy concerning Tyre, c. xxiii., has
been denied to be Isaiah's on account of the mentio.n
of the Chaldeans, and because it lias been supposed
that its fulfilment must be found in history ; also be-
cause of the supposed Chaldaising language (verses 3,
11). But these objections can be some of them entire-
ly confuted, and others shown to be weak." * The
preceding statement is a remarkable exhibition of the
mi trustworthiness of Rationalist criticism on account
of the previous dogmatic prejudices of the authors
against inspiration and prediction. It is also a speci-
men, one out of thousands, of howr much reliance is to
be placed on Professor Jowctt's statement, " that the

* This has been done by both Gesenius and Knobel in their commentaries.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECT. 19rj

diversity amongst German writers on prophecy is far
less than among English ones. That is a new phe-
nomenon which has to be acknowledged." * Any one
who would take the trouble could show that the con-
trary is the fact ; that there is such a love of novelty,
and such unrestrained efforts after originality, that the
diversities of opinion on any one subject, easy or
difficult, are much greater than in England.

But to return ; Professor Jowett says that this is
one of the passages which have not been fulfilled. " For
a like reason the failure of a prophecy is never admitted,
in spite of Scripture and of history (Jer. xxxvi. 30 ;
Isai. xxiii. ; Amos vii. 10-17)." f "What he considers
unfulfilled in this prediction he does not say ; but there
are two points to which he probably alludes. The first
is, that there is no historic account of Tyre having been
taken by assault by Nebuchadnezzar. But no such
event is predicted in this chapter. The prophet fore-
tells a siege by the Chaldeans, great calamities, Tyre
reduced to a ruin — this is all matter of history. Tyre
was besieged for thirteen years.J In so long a siege
the city must have suffered severely. Nebuchadnezzar
overran all Syria and Phoenicia : § he must, therefore,
have taken Old Tyre on the continent ; and modern
critics now admit that if New Tyre on the island was
not taken by assault, it submitted to the Chaldeans by
capitulation, and that the Tyrian royal family was car-
ried to Babylon. So Gesenius says, " The siege proba-
bly ended with a peaceable agreement and alliance,
as we see that subsequently the Tyrians sent to Baby-
lon to fetch Merbal, one of their later kin^s (Joseph,
contra Apion. i. § 21)." And Tholuck (p. 133), " That
which, after the searching investigations of Hengsten-
berg and Havernik, should never have been questioned,
has now, since the farther researches in Movers (ii. 1, p.
461), found pretty general reception (also in Duncker,
i. 172 ; Niebuhr, p. 216) ; that certainly, if not a con-

* ' Essa)Ts and Reviews,' p. 340.

+ ' Essays,' p. 343.

X Josephus, Antiq. lib. x , c. 11. Contra Ap. i. 21.

§ Contra Apion. lib. i. c. 20.

12Q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay I II.

quest, yet a capitulation of the Tynans must have taken
place, in consequence of which they again became vas-
sals of the Chaldeans, and were obliged to submit to
the removal of the royal family to Babylon. The
plainest proof of this is seen in the fact, that about a
year later they were attacked as Chaldean vassals and
subdued by Hophra, who had been formerly their ally.
That this conquest could have been effected by the
Egyptian king by a surprise, shows in what a low state
their fortifications and their power must have been." *
It is therefore historically certain that Tyre was be-
sieged, and reduced to a state of ruin by the Chaldeans,
just as Isaiah had foretold about a hundred and thirty
years before, when the Chaldeans were as yet mere
mercenary troops in the armies of Assyria. It is
equally certain that after the fall of Babylon, Tyre
became independent, rich, and prosperous again, as
the prophet foretold. " It shall come to pass in that
day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, ac-
cording to the days of one king : after the end of sev-
enty years shall Tyre sing as a harlot." The discord
amongst critics about the meaning of the seventy years
and the days of one king, is just as great as that already
noticed. Two opinions meet most favour : one, that
of the Rationalists, that seventy is a round number,
and that seventy years mean a long time ; the other,
that Icing here means dynasty or Jcingdom of the Chal-
deans, as Dan. vii. 17, viii. 20, which is the view of
Aben Ezra, Vitringa, Lowth, Doderlein, Rosenmuller,
&c. If either be true, the objector cannot fairly say
that the prediction has not been fulfilled.

With regard to the concluding verse, in which the
prophet foretells that after Tyre's recovery from Babylo-
nian vassalage, " Her merchandize and her hire should be
holiness to the Lord," the most that can be objected is,
that we have no record of its fulfilment. But from
this it does not follow that this part of the prediction

* That is, to what a state of ruin they had been reduced by the previous
thirteen years' siege. — See also von Niebuhr's ' Geschichte Assur's und Ba-
bel's,' p. 216.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. 127

was not accomplished. The fulfilment could only have
taken place after the restoration from Babylon, and
before the destruction by Alexander. The records of
events in Scripture from the return of Zerubbabel to
the close of the Canon are too brief too afford ns any
light as to the relations between Tyre and Jerusalem.
In the days of Solomon we know that they were
friendly, Hiram contributed to the building of the
temple, and the friendship must have continued un-
usually intimate, as Amos denounces punishment upon
Tyre for " not having remembered the brotherly cove-
nant." (Amos i. 9.) There is, therefore, nothing im-
probable in the supposition that, after Tyre's recovery
from almost ruin, friendly relations were re-established,
and rich offerings made in the temple at Jerusalem.
The marvellous fulfilment of the former portion respect-
ing the Chaldeans is a guarantee for the Divine origin
and accomplishment of the latter. Hitherto objectors
have only asserted, nut attempted to prove, the non-
fulfilment.

There are other fulfilled predictions to which the
reader's attention might satisfactorily have been turned,
but the charge of non-fulfilment made in ' Essays and
Reviews ' constrains us to consider a passage in Jere-
miah, and another in Amos there referred to, in support
of the allegation. The former, Jer. xxxvi. 10, is thus
given in the Authorized Version : — " Therefore thus
saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, he shall
have none to sit [literally, ' none sitting ' *] upon the
throne of David ; and his body shall be cast out in the
day to the heat, and in the night to the frost." f To
this Hitzig in his commentary objects, that Jehoiakim
had a son, Jehoiachin, who did sit upon his throne,
and that in 2 Kings xxiv. 6 (Heb. 5), we read, " So
Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his

* The present participle 5TDY1 is used to denote continuance. See Ewald,
Gramm. § 350.

The verb ST)"1 signifies to abide, continue, endure, as well as to sit. Gen.
xxiv. 55 : Ps. ix. S ; Jer. xxx. 18.

t Compare xxii. 19 : " He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn
and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem."

128 AIDS T0 FAITH. (Essay III.

son reigned in his stead." If Jeremiah had, after utter-
ing the prophecy, committed it to writing, and then
died before Jehoiakim, this objection might have some
weight ; but when it is remembered that Jeremiah
lived many years after the death of Jehoiakim, and, if
his words had been falsified by events, might have
altered them, and yet did not, but left them as origi-
nally uttered, the objection ceases to have any force
at all. The prophet must have been satisfied after the
event, that his words expressed what had happened.
Jehoiakim had in fact no son " sitting," or continuing
on the throne of David, for three months after Jehoia-
chin's elevation, he was deposed and carried away. The
words, " He slept with his fathers," signify simply that
he died, affirming nothing about his burial. Here
Ewald is much more thoughtful and more candid than
the English Essayist or his German forerunner. In
the l Geschichte des Yolkes Israel,' iii. p. 430, Ewald
gives an account of the death of Jehoiakim and of the
treatment of his corpse in agreement with Jeremiah's
words, and, in a note, adds, "The particular circum-
stances of the death of Jehoiakim are very obscure.
The formula, ' He slept with his fathers,' 2 Kings xxiv.
5, means nothing more than his death ; that he was
taken prisoner is mentioned, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6 ; but
what actually occurred may be inferred with tolerable
probability from the words selected by Jeremiah xxii.
18, &c., and xxxvi. 30. For, though the projDhet had
certainly predicted the king's unhappy end long be-
fore, he wrote down the words after the event." Ewald,
therefore, saw the impossibility of these words contain-
ing an unfulfilled prediction. The English objector
might have saved his criticism from appearing as the
dictate of passion rather than the conclusion of judg-
ment, had he taken time to consider the prophet's words
impartially.

Another example of this unhappy hastiness in tak-
ing up objections is found in the reference to Amos vii.
10-17. In our English Bible the passage reads thus : —
" Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam

EssatIII.] PEOPHECY. 229

King of Israel, saying, Amos bath conspired against
thee in the midst of the house of Israel : the land is
not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith,
Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall
surely be led away captive out of their own land.
And Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go flee
thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread,
and prophesy there : But prophesy not again any more
at Bethel ; for it is the king's chapel and the king's
court." Amos asserts his Divine call, and utters this
prediction against Amaziah : — " Therefore, thus saith
the Lord ; thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and
thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and
thy land shall be divided by line ; and thou shalt die
in a polluted land ; and Israel shall surely go into cap-
tivity forth of his land." As the Essayist does not
specify the particulars which he supposes unfulfilled,
we can only state the objection according to Hitzig.
First, then, he may suppose that the prediction is not
fulfilled because Jeroboam II. did not die by the sword ;
but if the objector will look at verse 9, he will see that
Amos did not predict anything of the kind — the
prophet's threat is not against Jeroboam, but his
house. " I will rise against the house of Jeroboam
with the sword," which threat was fulfilled when
Shallum conspired against Jeroboam's son and suc-
cessor, and slew him and reigned in his stead. (2
Kings xv. 10.) The words, " Jeroboam shall die by
the sword," were a malicious addition of Amaziah's
to induce Jeroboam to drive Amos from Bethel. Ilit-
zig's attempt to prove that " house of Jeroboam " in-
cluded Jeroboam himself by referring to Isai. vii. 13,
where " house of David " includes Ahaz and his family,
is a miserable failure. To make the cases parallel,
Isaiah must have said, " Hear ye now, O house of
Ahaz."

The next portion of the assaulted prediction foretells

that Israel should go into captivity. Taking Knobel's

dates, Amos uttered his prophecies between 790-784

b. c, i. e. before the death of Jeroboam. The final car-

6*

130 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

lying away of Israel by Shalmanescr occurred about
sixty years after : so that here is an undoubted predic-
tion undoubtedly fulfilled.

There remains only the denunciation against Am-
aziah, his wife and children, the fulfilment of which is
not recorded. But surely this is not surprising, when
the excessive brevity of the accounts of the kings and
revolutions that followed, is taken into consideration.
There is nothing impossible or improbable in the fate
predicted. Within thirty years from the date of the
prophecy, the Assyrians began their incursions into the
land of Israel. Although, then, the fulfilment of this
particular is not related, it is not improbable. The ful-
filment of the other two particulars is a guarantee that
this also was accomplished. This objection, however,
like others of the kind, has this value : it shows that
the objector believes that the Hebrew prophets did lay
claim to the power of predicting future events.

11. Here our attention has been directed to one of
many wondrous predictions concerning the destinies of
Israel, which have excited the astonishment of readers
in all ages. Moses foretold the dispersion of the dis-
obedient people, and their preservation in the midst of
the nations. The theme has been taken up by all the
later prophets. The fulfilment is before our eyes. Is-
rael has been scattered to the four winds, but is still
preserved. Of the nations by whom and amongst
whom they were first dispersed the Lord has made a
full end. He has chastened Israel in measure, but has
not permitted them to disappear.- The Assyrians, the
Babylonians, the Eomans have utterly perished. The
Ten Tribes are " wanderers among the nations." The
people of the Jews, rich, powerful, intelligent, survive
all the revolutions of Empires, ancient, medieval, mod-
ern, and await the consummation of the Lord's oracles. f
But as this is matter of notoriety, is not disputed or
explained by nationalists or Essayists, it is enough to
refer to this proof of revelation, as wonderful as the
answer to Elijah's prayer (1 Kings, xviii.).

* Jcr. xxx. 11, xxxi. 35-37 ; Isai. vi. 11-13 ; Amos ix. 9.
t See Butler's ' Analogy,' Part ii. c. 7.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY.

131

12. But that which gives to Hebrew prophecy its
peculiar charm, and its paramount importance, is that
it contains predictions respecting Redemption and
the Redeemer. That there are Messianic prophecies
has been the belief of Jews and Christians for more
than two thousand years, and is fully admitted by the
New School of Theology. But, much beyond this, the
agreement between the old and new interpreters does
not extend. For some of the prophecies applied in the
New Testament to the Messiah, the modern school has
new interpretations. Of others, and those most im-
portant, it denies the genuineness ; and one of the vital
questions now brought before the English mind is,
whether we are to follow the New Testament, or the
new German critics. The innovators in England do
not pretend to offer anything original of their own.
They repeat in English what they have derived from
one class of German writers. And, as German learn-
ing stands deservedly in high repute, there is a danger
of the unwary receiving without question, what ap-
pears to come on authority so respectable. Hence the
present necessity of such frequent references to the
sources from which they draw, and also of recalling
attention to the real question at issue, namely, whether
the New Testament or German critics are to be our
guides in interpreting prophecy. Now, placing for a
moment the New Testament writers on the lowest level,
regarding them merely as included amongst the ancient
Jews, their opinion must be of some value. Theirs
were the prophetic books. For their fathers and for
themselves they were written. They were orientals.
They inherited the traditional interpretation of their
people. Their interpretation has been accepted by the
intelligent of other nations. The Christian Church,
composed of a great variety of races, abounding in
minds of all possible types, in different stages of cul-
ture, approved and adhered to the old Jewish interpre-
tation for many centuries. True, that only two or three
of the Fathers understood Hebrew, and that the early
Church was dependent upon the Greek and Syriac, and

132 Air>s T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

the medieval Church on the Vulgate, versions. But,
as was said above, and at the present time ought to ha
kept in remembrance, however many of the beauties
and peculiarities of the writer maybe lost in a version,
■the grand substance, the purpose and intent of the
whole, which is, after all, the real meaning of any book
that has a meaning, may be grasped in any tolerable
translation by any intelligent reader. And that which
suo-o-ests itself to the common sense of mankind, as the
meaning, whether derived from version or original, is
undoubtedly the true meaning. And so it is with proph-
ecy. To readers of ancient or modern versions, or of
the original, the general scope and intent has ever
appeared the same. And, therefore, at the revival of
letters, and at the Eeformation, when the original lan-
guage of the prophets came to be studied, the general
sense, handed down from the New Testament writers
by the Fathers and medieval divines, still commended
itself to students as acute in intellect, and to scholars as
familiar with the Hebrew language, as any # who have
lived in the last hundred years. Indeed it may bo
doubted whether Hebrew has been so nearly a mother-
tongue with any recent critics, as it was with the
Buxtorfs, Wagenseil, Edzard, and others of old ; and
whether any modern commentators have been natural-
ly more competent to grasp the general sense than the
Reformers, and those who followed them. And yet,
from the Reformation down to the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, the old interpretation prevailed,
Romanists and Protestants were still of one mind as to
the general outline of prophetic truth. "Wonderful if
ancient Jews, Fathers and Medievalists, Protestants
and Romanists, were all mistaken, and the true sense
hidden until about fifty years ago.

13. If the New School were all of one mind ; if all
modern critics were unanimous in their judgments, and
uniform in their interpretations, and their conclusions
had been arrived at by unbiassed investigation, such
unanimity of opinion, and conclusions so deduced,
would naturally have great weight. But the variety

Essay III.] PE0P1IECY.

133

and diversity of opinion in the German Rationalist
School is unbounded. They agree only in that negative
view, which necessarily arises from the common origin
and the common principles of their theology. The
origin of their theology is undoubtedly Deistic infidel-
ity ;* its fundamental principles, that there is no super-
natural revelation of Deity, and therefore no Divine
prediction, f consequently that there can be no real
predictions concerning Jesus of J^azareth, or anybody
else.;}: Criticism derived from such a source, and guid-
ed by such principles, must be eminently untrustwor-
thy. The conclusions forerun the investigation. If
there can be no prediction at all, then there can be
none relating to our Lord ; and therefore from their
general principle, before any investigation is made, it fol-
lows that neither the xxiind Psalm, nor Isai. vii. 14, nor
any other Psalm or prophecy, can be interpreted of
the Saviour, and therefore investigation can only be
made in order to show that the foregone conclusion is
true. The investigators may be learned, profound,
acute, diligent, honest, but their principles hinder them
from acknowledging that any prediction ever was or
can be fulfilled, and compel them to conclude that it is
not ; and therefore their criticism and conclusions in
such matters must be regarded not only with suspicion,
but as probably untrue, the result of their dogmatic
prejudices, and therefore utterly insufficient to out-
weigh the common judgment of Jews and Gentiles for
more than two thousand years.

14:. Such would be the opinion of the student who
had never heard of Evangelists, Apostles, or Rationalists
in his life, but considered the subject, apart from all
religious interests, merely in a scientific point of view.

* See ' Letters on Rationalism,' passim.

t At vero quibus miraculorum auctoritas implicita est scrnpulis, iisdem
vel gravioribus etiam decreta de vaticiniis proposita premuntur. Primum
enim quasvis predictio divinitus patefacta, qua fatum inevitabile hominis aut
populi cnjusdam, quod ex re quadam ab ipsis perpetranda pendet, diserte
nunciatur, ideae Dei sanctissimi et benignissimi repugnat, fataUsmum fovet
et libertatem hominum moralem tollit. — Wegscheider, InsUtutiones, p. 217.

% "So muss wohl zugegeben werden, dass ein Enveis Christi als Erlosers
aus den Weissagungen uumoglich ist." — Scbleiermacher, Der (Jhristliche
Glaube, i. 2, a. 105.

134 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III.

But in the question between the New Testament and
modern criticism the Christian sees something more
than an alternative between ancient Judaism and mod-
ern heathenism — he sees that it is an alternative be-
tween Christ and unbelief. The interpretations of the
New Testament are the interpretations of Christ and of
those to whom, " beginning at Moses, and all the proph-
ets, he expounded in all the Scriptures the things
concerning himself" (Luke xxiv. 27), "whose under-
standings He opened that they might understand the
Scriptures" (Luke xxiv. 45); to whom He sent His
Holy Spirit to " bring all things to their remembrance
whatsoever He had said unto them," and to "guide
them into all truth." (John xiv. 26, xvi. 13.) He can-
not depart from their interpretations, and adopt the
new and contradictory criticism, without admitting
either that Christ knowingly accommodated Himself to
the errors of the times, or that He was mistaken, or
that His discourses have been incorrectly reported; any
one of which admissions is equivalent to a renunciation
of Christianity. The first is the supposition of some of
the elder Rationalists, the second of some of the later,
and the third apparently of many modern critics. To
admit the first is to deny our Lord's integrity, to con-
cede the second is to make him a mere fallible man,
and to receive the third is to take away the main
ground of our faith in Christ. The lowest theory of in-
spiration, at all comdatible with faith, is that "it pro-
tects the doctrine." Our Lord's doctrine is contained
in His discourses, and part of those discourses is His
interpretation of prophecy, and the promise of the
Holy Spirit to guide His disciples. If in those dis-
courses, or those of His discirdes, the prophecies are
falsely interpreted, the doctrine is not protected, the
promise of the Spirit cannot have been fulfilled, and we
are brought to the horrid and blasphemous conclusion
that Christ, "The Way, the Truth, and the Life," was
fallible, and that His word is not to be depended upon.
From these consistent and necessary conclusions the
Essayists do not shrink any more than their German

EssatIILJ PEOPIIECY. 135

masters. They reject the New Testament interpretation
of prophecy, and then consistently deny the authority
of the New Testament itself. He who would sweep
away all predictive prophecy insinuates that the Gospel
portrait of our Lord is dimmed " by the haze of mingled
imagination and remembrance, with which his awful
figure could scarcely fail to be at length invested by
affection." * Another says that " The New Testament
writings leave us in uncertainty as to the descent of
Jesus Christ according to the flesh, whether by His
mother He were of the tribe of Judah, or of the tribe
of Levi ; "f implies that His birth at Bethlehem and
the announcement of it by the Angels are doubtful ;
and that the three first Gospels, though more trust-
worthy than the fourth, contain only " more exact tra-
ditions of what he actually said." A third, who, fol-
lowing Reimarus,J doubts whether any one passage
from the Psalms or Prophets quoted in the Epistles is
rightly interpreted, § insinuates that our Lord's pre-
diction concerning the clay of judgment has failed
because it is inseparable from that of the destruction of
Jerusalem, and in another work expressly teaches that
in this matter our Lord was mistaken. || Thus the ex-
ample of foreign critics and their followers at home
warns us that if we give up the prophetic interpretations
of Christ and the Apostles, we must prepare also to part
with our Christianity, and begin a painful and not very
profitable search for those crumbs of Divine truth,
which these kind critics still suppose to be scattered
about in the Prophets and Evangelists, and which can
only be recognized by the verifying faculty of the critic.
But if we believe in Christ, and those whom He taught
by His Spirit, we must take their principle of inter-
pretation as ours, and rest assured that the interpreta-
tions which they have given exhibit the true mind of
that Spirit who spake by the prophets. The wise men,
and the scribes, and the disputers of the day may decry

* ' Essays and Reviews/ p. 80. t Ibid., pp. ISO, 203.

% Wolfenbuttel, ' Fragments,' § 84-15. § Page 406.

I See Professor Jowett's ' Commentary to the First Epistle to the Thessa-
louians,' p. 108-111.

13G AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IIL

this principle as unscientific, and protest that it is better
not to read the Bible at all, than to read with such re-
strictions ; but Christians may be content with the
wisdom that came clown from above, and with the
liberty wherewith Christ has made them free. Where
our Lord or an inspired Apostle has spoken, we abide
by the interpretation.

15. Here, however, it is necessary to guard against
mistake. Where passages of the prophecies are cited
or applied, attention must be paid to the mind and in-
tention of the speaker or writer, as sometimes Old
Testament language is used without any intention of
intimating a fulfilment of prophecy either direct or
typical. The words were suitable to express the feel-
ings or thoughts of the writer, and they were adopted.
Thus when St. Paul says, "I say, have they not heard?
Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and
their words unto the end of the world," there is no
reason for supposing that the Apostle looked upon
Ps. xix. 4 as a prophecy fulfilled in the preaching of
the Gospel. The Psalm speaks of the heavens and the
firmament. But the words aptly and beautifully ex-
pressed what the disciples of Christ had already done,
and Paul was guided to adopt them, the rather because
in the Psalm itself the parallel is drawn between the
book of nature and the book of revelation, the har-
monious testimony of the works and word of God. An-
other instance occurs 1 Cor. xv. 32: "If the dead rise
not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Here
is a quotation from Isai. xxii. 13. The words of the
prophet forcibly depicted the character of those of
whom the Apostle was speaking, and they are adopted
accordingly. This principle is demonstrated by 2 Tim.
ii. 19 : " The foundation of God standeth sure, having
this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his." The
latter words are a quotation from Numb. xvi. 5, refer-
ring to the rebellion of Korah and his company, but
adopted by the Apostle, just as the later ru'ophets, es-
pecially Jeremiah, express their message occasionally
in citations from their predecessors or from the Pen-
tateuch.

Essay III] PEOniECT. 137

In the next place, it is to be observed that Old Testa-
ment passages are sometimes cited simply to confirm a
doctrine, or to form the foundation of an argument ; as
when the Apostle says (Rom. ix. 7), "Neither because
they are seed of Abraham, are they all children: but
in Isaac shall thy seed be called." the latter words are
cited to prove that mere fleshly descent does not con-
stitute a right to the inheritance or God's favour. Ish-
mael was according to the flesh the child of Abraham,
but it was to Isaac and his posterity that the inheritance
of the promises was given. In like manner our Lord
(Matt. xiii. 11) applies Isai. vi. 9, 10 to the Jews whom
He addressed, and St. Paul applies the same words
(Acts xxviii. 26) to the Jews at Rome. They contain
a general principle of God's dealings with men, appli-
cable at all times. So St. Paul (Rom. x. 12) employs
the words of Joel, "Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved," to prove that there
is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. The
stress is upon the words 7ra? <yap o? [im ^] "every
one." Not to the Jews only, but to every one who calls
upon the name of the Lord, God promises salvation,
therefore there is no difference, <fcc. The object for
which the quotation is made must be kept in view, else
the conclusiveness of the argument will be missed, and
a wrong interpretation given to the prophecy. As for
example (Acts xv. 15—17), where James proves the
right of the Gentiles to be received into the Church
without circumcision, he says, " Simeon hath declared
how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out
of them a people for His name. And to this agree the
words of the prophets ; as it is written, After this I will
return, and will build again the tabernacle of David,
which is fallen down . . . that the residue of men*
might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles on whom
my name is called, saith the Lord." Some readers and
interpreters fix their eye upon the tabernacle of David,
and seeing that that was not literally fulfilled, take it
figuratively of the Christian Church, and thereby do

* Amos, ix. 11, 12.

X38 AID9 T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

violence to the words of the prophecy, and at the same
time miss St. James's argument, The question was,
whether the Gentiles, i.e. without circumcision and
obedience to the Mosaic Law, could be received into
the Christian Church. The majority of Jewish Chris-
tians thought that they could not. St. Peter proved
that these persons were wrong by an appeal to fact.
St. James shows the same by a reference to prophecy.
His object was not to quote and show a fulfilment of
one prediction, but the general tenour of all respecting
the call of the Gentiles as such, and therefore he says
in the plural, "To this agree the words of the prophets."
At the same time he selects one, in which the Gentiles
[n^, edvrj] are mentioned by name with the addition
" all," "all nations," and where it is said that the name
of the Lord is called upon them. The stress of the
argument rests upon the word " Gentiles," and upon the
fact that God's name is called upon them ; as if he
would say, " Here in Amos men upon whom the Lord's
name is called are still spoken of as Gentiles ; they can-
not therefore be persons circumcised and keeping the
Law, and therefore the name of the Lord may now also
be called upon Gentiles as such, and therefore there is
no necessity for circumcising them. To enter the
Church of Christ it is not necessary that they should
cease to be Gentiles, or become proselytes by circum-
cision." *

16. In the next place words are quoted from the
prophets, which contain no prediction at all, and are
yet spoken of as being fulfilled, because the event to
which they allude was a type of that to which they are
applied. Our Lord and, after Him, the Apostles, lay
down the principle that past history may represent
that which is to happen hereafter. Thus the Saviour
refers to the brazen serpent, and to Jonah as prefigur-
ing His resurrection, and even the time of it on the
third day. St. Paul teaches that Hagar and Sarah are

* The account of this dispute is a strong testimony to the credibility,
knowledge, and good faith of the writer. The Pharisees believed that pros-
elytes of the gate, i.e. proselytes without circumcision, could only be received
when all the twelve tribes were in the land.

Essay III.] PEOPIIEOY. 13 9

typical of the covenants ; the Paschal lamb of Christ's
atoning death ; the passage of the Eed Sea of baptism ;
the smitten rock of Christ. The author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, St. Peter in his allusion to the deluge,
and St. John in his mystical application of the^ names
Sodom, Egypt, and Babylon, confirm the principle,
which helps us to interpret passages of the Old Testa-
ment, such as those where the Messiah is called David,
and to understand passages of the New Testament,
where what was spoken of David is applied to our
Lord. The principle also solves the apparent difficulty
of two passages strongly insisted upon by the enemies
of Christianity. Concerning our Lord's early sojourn
in Egypt, St. Matthew says, that it happened " that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the
prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my Son,"
— and respecting the slaughter of the children at Beth-
lehem, " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken hy
Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Kama wTas a voice
heard.'" In neither case does St. Matthew quote pre-
dictions, but Hosea's and Jeremiah's references to past
history. When Hosea said, "Out of Egypt have I
called my son," or when Jeremiah spoke of Kachel
weeping for her children, neither wras uttering a pre-
diction of the future, but alluding to facts long past.
Hosea was alluding to the Exodus eight centuries be-
fore, and Jeremiah to the carrying away of the Ten
Tribes one hundred years before he wrote. St. Mat-
thew therefore speaks of them as fulfilled in the only
way in which facts can be fulfilled, in events the anti-
types of those referred to.

17. But after making allowance for these and numer-
ous other similar applications of prophecy, there re-
main many which the Lord and the Apostles interpret
as specially spoken in reference to Christ and Christi-
anity. It has ever been the belief of all orthodox
writers that Christ claimed to be the Messiah foretold
by the prophets. It is also acknowledged by nation-
alist divines. Thus Yon Colin says that the sick who
had been healed, the common people, his own inline-

240 AID3 T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

diate adherents, acknowledged Him as the Messiah,
and adds, "That Jesus approved, and even called forth
this view of Himself, is evident from His words and
His conduct. 1st. From His answer to Peter (Matt,
xvi. IT) ; His approval of the acclamations of the peo-
ple (Luke xix. *34, 40 ; Matt. xxi. 15, 16). 2nd. From
His assuming the names belonging to the Messiah,
especially the titles Son of God and Son of Man from
Dan. vii. 13, 14. 3rd. From His claiming the privi-
leges attributed to the Messiah, as the full unfolding
and explanation of the Law (Matt. v. 17) ; the asser-
tion that He was Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. xii. 8) ;
His reformation of the temple service (John ii. 13, 20) ;
His dispensation of His disciples from the usual fasts
(Matt. ix. 14) ; and His claiming the right to forgive
sins. 4th. From His express declaration that He was
the Messiah (John iv. 25, 26; xvii. 3; Matt. xxvi. 63,
64, &c). — This his assertion that lie was sent from
God, as the founder of a new theocracy, Jesus proved
to be true — 1, From the Holy Scriptures of His people,
which bare witness of His person and His works.
According to the general convictions, the Law and the
Prophets spake of an ideal theocracy. There was an
unanimity of opinion as to the passages which treated
of the ideal King, and also as to the particular features
of his character as drawn [by the prophets]. AVhoso-
ever, therefore, gave himself out for the Messiah, was
under the necessity of proving that these features were
found in him. Jesus, therefore, often employed the
declarations of the Law and the Prophets to convince
the Jews that He was the Messiah. . . . The application
of the prophetic passages to Himself cannot^ be ex-
plained as accommodation , as Jesus in the circle of
His confidential disciples, and after Him the Apostles
in their discourses and Epistles, adhere to this aj^plica-
tion."* The same author teaches elsewhere (p. 89)
that our Lord received the Law and the Prophets as

* Von Colin, 'Biblische Theologic,' ii. p. 116-18, and SO; corop. Weg-
scheider, ' Institutiones,' § 119, especially JSote C. ; Knobel, ' Prophetism,' i.
S38 ; De Wette, * Biblische Doginatik,' § 189.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. 141

the inspired word of God, and " employed the prophetic
oracles in these writings as testimonies to His own ap-
pearance and works (John v. 39, 46 ; Luke iv. 21). He
pointed out especially and often that His sufferings
must happen according to the announcements of these
Holy Books, and were therefore inevitable ordinances
of God: Matt. xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 12, xiv. 49; Luke
xviii. 31-33, xxii. 37, xxiv. 26, 27."

18. Now the two prophets to whose writings our
Lord and the Apostles most emphatically refer are
Daniel and Isaiah ; and by their references they not
only interpret particular passages, but establish the
genuineness of the books. Oar Lord not only cites the
prophet Daniel by name, when speaking of " the abom-
ination of desolation" (Matt. xxiv. 15), but has been
pleased to adopt from that book the designation of His
kingdom, and the title which He appropriates to Him-
self. The expressions "Kingdom of Heaven," and
" Son of Man," are confessedly taken from the second
and seventh chapters of Daniel. The latter expression
is particularly important. Meyer says — "Its simple
meaning is, The Messiah. It is derived from the awful
and striking representation in the prophetic vision
(Dan. vii. 13) so well known to the Jews, and occur-
ring also in the pre-Christian book of Enoch, in which
the Messiah appears in the clouds of heaven, as 'The
Son of Man' (&>9 utos avOpcoTrov), surrounded by the
angels of the Divine throne of judgment (see Ewald,
'Gesch. Chr.,' p. 79), that is, in a form nothing differ-
ent from that of an ordinary man. Jesus, inasmuch as
in Him the Messiah was come, was, in the realisation,
that Son of ManVhose form was seen in Daniel's vis-
ion. As often, therefore, as Jesus in His discourses
says 'The Son of Man,' he means 'The Son of Man of
that vision of Daniel,' that is, The Messiah." * It is

* H. A. W. Meyer's ' Comm. on Matt. viii. 20/ Fleck also says : ' Denota-
tur cnim is, quern omnes norunt, qui omnium ore fertur (sensu exiinio ita
vocatus) f litis Jiominis _Z?a??i<?^2'cws=Messias.'' ' De Regno Divino,' p. 121.
The italics are Fleck's. He also refers to the KabbisrWetstein, Grotius,
Lampe, Stahl, Kuinoel, Liicke, Tlioluck. See also the references given above
to Von Colin, Wegscheider, De Wette, Knobel.

■j^r, AIDS TO PilTH. [Essay IIL

needless to say how often this expression occurs in all
the Gospels in our Lord's discourses, especially on the
most solemn occasions, as when He describes His
second advent (Matt. xiii. 41, xxiv. 27, 30, 44, xxv. 31);
when He speaks of His passion (John iii. 13, 14) on the
very eve of its accomplishment (Matt. xxvi. 24) ; and
when, after formal adjuration, He declares Himself the
Christ, the Son of God, " Hereafter shall ye see the
Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and
coming in the clouds of heaven ;" so that it is impossi-
ble to separate the essential elements of Christ's teach-
ing from the book of Daniel, and equally impossible to
suppose that He who came into the world to bear wit-
ness to the truth would ground His claims and His
most solemn doctrine on a forgery. The question of
the genuineness and authenticity of Daniel cannot,
therefore, be separated from that respecting the falli-
bility or infallibility of the Saviour. By asserting that
the book of Daniei is ungenuine— a forged and false
prophecy — men charge our Lord with the uncritical
ignorance of His times, or a deliberate application of
a document which He knew to be false. But the stu-
dent need not be alarmed at the greatness of the issue.
He must remember that the original assault on Daniel
was made by the heathen Porphyry, an able but bitter
enemy of Christianity in the third century, and is con-
tinued, partly in the original form of objection, by
those who deny all supernatural revelation, make our
Lord himself a mere man, and are as opposed to the
doctrine of Christ's proper Deity as Porphyry himself.
It must never be forgotten by those#who read nation-
alist books, that even when, like Schleiermacher and
his school, they use the expression " Son of God," they
use it in a non-natural sense, rejecting the accounts of
His supernatural birth, and regarding Him as the Son
of Joseph and Mary* They are interested, therefore,
not only in getting rid of the predictions in Daniel,
especially such an one as the seventy weeks, but also

* Compare 'Essays and Reviews/ pp. 82, 88, 89, 202, 203, 351, 352, 354,
355 ; and Schleiermacher's ' Glaubenslehre,' 3rd edit., pp. 64-60.

Essay III.] PROPHECY. 143

in setting aside a remarkable testimony to the Old
Testament doctrine of the Deity of Messiah. The two
main Rationalist arguments against the book of Daniel
are — first, that in their opinion it contains accurate pre-
dictions concerning Antiochus Epiphanes, which they
borrow from Porphyry ; and secondly, that it relates
miracles, and therefore according to their own system
cannot be true. This is strongly urged by Knobel.
"The history of Daniel," he says, "has a legendary,
almost a fairy-tale complexion, and represents the
events in a manner in which they could not possibly
have happened. They could have assumed this form
only after a long oral transmission. For in Hebrew
history, where numerous myths and legends occur, as,
for example, in that of the patriarchs, of Moses, Ba-
laam, Samson, Elijah, Elisha, the narratives were com-
mitted to writing a considerable time after the events ;
when, on the contrary, events have a natural appear-
ance, as in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, the first of
Maccabees, there they were generally committed to
writing at the time, or very soon after the events. This
is an historic canon, of the validity of which there can
be no doubt."*

To men holding such axioms of criticism, the book
of Daniel must, as a matter of course, be as ungenuine
as the narrative of our Lord's miracles. Criticisms,
therefore, founded on such principles must always ap-
pear questionable to a thoughtful inquirer, even if he
is not able to show their weakness or falsehood. The
believer in the Gospels will feel assured that they are
not unanswerable, and a little inquiry will satisfy him
that they have been answered again and again, by
scholars trained in the schools of modern German phi-
lology and criticism, and every way equal to the task.
Within the last thirty years, Hengstenberg, Sack,
Havernik, Eeichel, Schulze, Herbst, Vaihinger, Delitsch,
Oeler, Auberlen, Ztindel, have stood forward as suc-
cessful vindicators of the genuineness of Daniel's proph-
ecies. Kurz, Keil, v. Hoffmann, Drechsel, Baum-

* ' Proplietismus,' ii. 401.

144 AIDS TO FAITII. [Essay III.

gartenhave also confessed their adhesion to the ancient
faith.* A defender of the accuracy of Daniel's chrono-
logical statements has appeared in Marcus von Niebuhr,
in his History of Assyria and Babylon. These writers
show, one or other of them, that those interpreters who
would make the seventy weeks end with Antiochus
Epiphanes contradict and confute one another; that
that period must begin at the going forth of the decree
to rebuild Jerusalem, and must extend to the times of
our Lord ; that from the necessary and proved relations
between chapters ix. and xi., the latter looks far beyond
the days of Antiochus. They have answered the objec-
tions from the length of Daniel's life, from supposed
contradictions, from history, from dates. They have
proved that some of the supposed Grsecisms are not
Grsecisms at all; that others were naturalised in the
time of Daniel, the Greeks having had relations long
before with the Assyrians ; and, above all, that the
Canon of the Old Testament was closed within one
hundred years of the restoration of the Jewish State, and
the book of Daniel, if not written before, could not
have been admitted into it; that therefore the book
of Daniel is both genuine and authentic, f

19. The other p>rophecy, whose genuineness Rational-
ist criticism has specially delighted to dispute, is that
which is also specially vouched for by the New Testa-
ment, namely, that contained in the latter part of
Isaiah (chapters xl. — lxvi.) and which seems really the
connecting link between Old and New Testament reve-
lation. It is a singular coincidence that those portions
of the Old Testament which are most essential to New
Testament theology — as the Pentateuch, the book of
Daniel, and the latter part of Isaiah — are just those
parts which Rationalist criticism has selected as the
favourite fields on which to display its skill. Those
Messianic predictions, which it can explain with plausi-
bility as expressing Jewish hopes of earthly grandeur
and prosperity, and incompatible with the teaching of

* Compare Auborlen's ' Dcr Prophet Daniel,' pp. 104-177.

t Compare what Bishop Cutler has said: 'Analogy,' p. ii. c. vii. 3,

Essay III.] PEOPHEOY. 145

Christ, it pronounces to be genuine. The prophecies
which represent the Son of Man as a heavenly judge,
coming in the clouds of heaven (Dan. vii.) ; the Mes-
siah as cut off (Dan. ix.) ; Sion's King as meek and
lowly, and riding upon an ass (Zech. ix.) ; the good
shepherd, sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. xi.) ;
pierced by the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Zech. xii. 10,
xiii.) ; despised and rejected of men, cut off out of the
land of the living, one upon whom the Lord hath laid
the iniquities of us all (Isaiah liii.) — are just the pre-
dictions which it proves to be ungenuine. The book
of Daniel, the latter half of Zechariah, and the conclu-
sion of Isaiah, which, if genuine, are fatal to Rationalist
theology, are by Rationalist criticism condemned as
ungenuine, in direct opposition to the teaching of the
New Testament. The quotations from Zechariah are
well known, the determination of our Lord to fulfil the
ninth chapter of that prophecy obvious in the Gospels.
The condemned portion of Isaiah is also emphatically
honoured by the Lord and His Apostles. From the
beginning to the end it is quoted as the work of Isaiah,
and as fulfilled in our Lord. John the Baptist begins
the interpretation with the opening prediction (Isaiah
xl.) by declaring, " I am the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said
the prophet Esaias" (John i. 23). Matthew xii. 17—21
explains Isaiah xlii. 1 — 3 of our Lord, and as the proph-
ecy of Isaiah. The corresponding passage (xlix. 6)
respecting the Lord's righteous servant is interpreted
by St. Paul of the call of the Gentiles (Acts xiii. 47).
The fifty-third chapter is appropriated by our Lord
Himself (Luke xxii. 37) ; and, after Him, explained by
Philip (Acts viii.) ; by St. Peter (1 Epist. ii. 24, 25) ;
and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix. 28) of the sacrifice
of Christ. Chapter lxi. 1 is also interpreted by our Lord
of Himself (Luke iv. 17 — 21) ; and the end of the proph-
ecy (lxv. 1) is in the Epistle to the Romans (x. 20,
21) expounded of the conversion of the Gentiles, and
the unbelief of the Jewish people. Thus the whole of
the prophecy, from the beginning to the end, is in the
7

24Q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay III.

"New Testament ascribed to Isaiah as the writer, and
cited as being fulfilled in our Lord, His sufferings, and
His salvation. Both statements are denied by Rational-
ist writers, so that we cannot follow the latter without
rejecting the teaching of the Lord and His Apostles,
and the common belief of the Christian Church and the
Jewish nation for nearly 1800 years. With regard to
the authorship of this portion of Isaiah, there was dur-
ing that long period only one opinion. One solitary
rabbi in the twelfth century suggested a doubt on the
subject, but, with the exception of Spinoza, was not
followed by either Jews or Christians. It was not until
men had ceased to believe in Christ that they began to
question the latter prophecy of Isaiah. The Buxtorfs,
the Carpzovs, Glassius, Gussetius, Cocceius, Yenema,
Yitringa, Schultens, Danz, the Michaelis, acquiesced
in the "judgment of antiquity. Even Paulus says that
the diction is as pure as in the other parts of Isaiah.
Eichhorn adduced no instances of later language.
Bertholdt confesses that there are no traces of later
usage. The first, and the great objection still, is that
Cyrus is mentioned by name. When men came to
teach either that God could not know beforehand the
name of one of His creatures, or if He could,^ could not
or would not communicate it before the existence of
that creature, they necessarily thought that the predic-
tion concerning the conqueror of Babylon must have
been written after his appearance. The denial of the
genuineness came first, the criticism came after, similar
to that famous course of law which first condemned and
executed, and afterwards proceeded to trial. Yet the
process 1ms led to beneficial results. The Rationalist
dogmatic criticism has been subjected to a thorough
examination by Hengstenberg, Llavernik, KLeinert,
Drechsler, Keil, and others. The objections have been
fairly met, and the claims of Isaiah to the latter chap-
ters vindicated on various grounds, as, for example, the
plain references to those chapters in the books of Ga-
lium, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah ; the circum-
stances of the times described, so exactly agreeing to

Essay III. J PROPHECY. I47

the days of Isaiah, not to the close of the exile ; the
historical relations; the similarity of style and man-
ner— the peculiarities of diction ; the entire tone and
colouring, not to mention other evidences external and
internal. Indeed, Ewald and Bleek have made a fatal
rent in the adverse criticism by confessing that the
passage lvi. 9 — Ivii. 11, was written before the exile.
" This passage," they say, " may be received with the
highest probability as a prophetic oracle, uttered before
the exile, perhaps by Isaiah himself; more probably
not long before the exile, certainly at a time when the
Jewish State still existed, as it is only on this supposi-
tion that the contents and composition can be under-
stood." *

20. Even that chapter which invests the controversy
with its chief interest (liii. 1 — 12) is supposed by Ewald
to be the work of a prophet anterior to the author of
the other chapters; and, referring to the strong traits of
personal individuality, not personification, especially
in verse 8, he says — " The belief of after times, that
the historic Messiah is here to be found, lay certainly
very near at hand"\ Indeed the prophetic picture of
the sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth is so lifelike, that
when it has been for the first time brought before Jews
ignorant of the passage, they have affirmed that the
chapter has been inserted in the Christian editions of
the Hebrew Bible ; whilst others, not a few, have been
brought by it to faith in Christ. It is not, therefore, to
be wondered at that for more than seventeen centuries
the Christian Church received the prophecy as genuine ;
and that the Fathers, the medieval writers, the Reform-
ers, Protestants and Romanists after the Reformation,
with the one exception of Grotius, interpreted it of our
Lord, until Deistic infidelity found its way into the
hearts and minds of so-called Christian divines, and the
necessities of the new theology imperatively demanded
a new interpretation. First Neology and then Ration-

* Bleek, ' Einleitung,' p. 45G ; Ewald, ' Propheten des alien Bundes,' pp.
407, 8.

t Ibid, in the note.

148 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IIL

alism set to work, and the result is a curious specimen
of the alleged agreement of modern German expositors
of prophecy. Here is one of the most striking and ex-
tended prophecies to be found in the Bible ; not an
obscure verse, where agreement is impossible, but an
oracle running through twenty-seven chapters ; and yet
German commentators have not yet decided as to the
fundamental principle of interpretation, whether the
subject is an individual or a personified aggregate.
Neither do the two parties formed by this difference
agree among themselves. Of the first class, some inter-
pret it of King Uzziah, others of Josiah, others of the
prophet Isaiah himself, others of an unknown prophet
persecuted and killed in the exile ; * Eunsen alone,
after Grotius, of the prophet Jeremiah. In the second
class, the greatest names of Germany stand arrayed
against each other. Eichhorn, Hendewerck, Koster,
Hitzig, Ewald, Beck, interpret the prophecy of "the
Jewish people, actual or ideal. Paulus, Thenius,
Maurer, von Colin, Knobel, say that "The servant of
the Lord" means the better portion of the exiles. Rosen-
miiller, Gesenius, De Wette, assert that he is a per-
sonification of the collective prophetic order, f For
several of these interpretations, these distinguished
writers are indebted to Jewish polemics. The applica-
tion to Josiah was invented by Abarbanel in the six-
teenth century; that to Jeremiah by Saadiah Gaon, in
the ninth century ; that to the whole Jewish people
was known to the Jews with whom Origen disputed,
and is most generally accepted by modern Jews ; that
to the pious or better portion of the people is found in
Itashi, in the eleventh century. The ancient Jewish
interpretation was that which referred the prophecy to
the Messiah. From the LXX. it can be inferred with
certainty that they distinguished between the servant
of the Lord and the people of Israel. This is evident
from their translation of xlii. 6 and xlix. 6, where they

* See Hengstenberg, ' CUristologie/ i. p. 30G; Gcsenius's 'Commentary/
iii. pp. 104-172,

t See Knobel, ' Commentary/ pp. 382-390.

Essay III.] PEOPHECY. 149

plainly make the Lord's servant "The raiser up of
Jacob," and " The restorer of the dispersion of Israel,"
and " a covenant of the people," which words cause
such difficulties to Rationalist interpreters as to make
them violate the commonest proprieties of Hebrew
idiom. When, therefore, the LXX. inserted the words
"Jacob" and "Israel" in xlii. 1, " Jacob is my servant,
and I will help him : Israel is mine elect, my soul hath
accepted him," — they did not mean to apply those
words to the people, but to give to the servant of the
Lord that title which he has in the Hebrew text in xlix.
3. " And He said to me, Thou art my servant : Israel
art thou, in whom I will be glorified," * where Gesenius,
and before him J. D. Michaelis, in order to get rid of
the plain meaning, propose to set critical authority at
defiance, and oust the word " Israel " from the text.
The LXX. have it here all right, where they plainly
distinguish between the Lord's servant and the people,
and thereby prove that they thought the words " Jacob"
and " Israel " titles of this servant, and not the name of
the people. And, therefore, in xlii. 19, " Who is blind but
my servant? or deaf as my messenger that I sent? who
is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's
servant ? " which they interpret of the people, and not
of the servant ; they turn the singulars into plurals to
prevent mistake — koX rt? tu<£\o? aX)C rj ol 7ratSe? /jlov,
kcll fcco(f>ol dXTC i) ol Kvpievovres avrcov ; /cal irvcpXcoOijo-av
ol SovXot rod Qeol.

The early traditions of the Hebraist Jewrs are clear
and unequivocal, and are identical with the New
Testament interpretation, as is admitted even by the
modern Rabbis, f who, for polemical reasons, inter-
pret differently. Aben Esra, in the twelfth century,
says, " Many have interpreted this chapter of Messiah
because our ancients of blessed memory have said that

* This is the translation given by Gesenius of the text as it stands.

t By modern Rabbis are meant those who lived from the 11th century on,
when, partly owing to the hostility excited by the Crusaders in the Jewish
mind, and partly from their intercourse with the Mahometans, Jewish inter-
pretation and Jewish theology underwent a great change, and diverged
widely from ancient Judaism as well as from Christianity.

250 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

Messiah was born the same clay that the Temple was
destroyed, and that he is bound in chains." Rabbi
Alshech, who flourished in Palestine in the middle of
the sixteenth century, makes a similar confession —
" Behold our Rabbis have with one mouth confirmed,
and received by tradition that King Messiah is here

spoken of He beareth the iniquities of the

children of Israel, and behold His reward is with
Him." The truth of these confessions may be seen by
consulting the ancient books of authority. In Isai.
xlii. 1, and lii. 13, Jonathan, about the time of our
Lord, adds Messiah after the word " servant ;" " Be-
hold, my servant, the Messiah." The book of Zohar,
regarded with the utmost reverence by all pious Jews,
and parts of which are certainly from the first century
of Christianity, also says plainly that Messiah bears
the sins of the people, and that " If he had not re-
moved them from Israel and taken them upon himself,
no man could bear the chastisement of Israel on ac-
count of the punishment pronounced in the Law.
This is what is written — Surely He hath borne our
sicknesses. The Talmud (Sanhedrin, vol. 98, col. 2),
the Psikta, and Yalkut Shimoni, all have the same
interpretation. " Behold my servant shall deal very
prudently — this is the King Messiah. He shall be
exalted, and extolled, and be very high. He shall be
exalted more than Abraham. . . . He shall be extolled
more than Moses. . . . He shall be higher than the
ministering angels. 'But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities : the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with
His stripes we are healed.' Rabbi Huna, in the name
of Rabbi Acha says, the chastisements were divided
into three parts : — one to David and the fathers ; one
to the rebellious generation ; and one to King Messiah."
Indeed, such possession had this interpretation of the
Jewish mind, that it found its way into the prayers of
the Synagogue, and there it remains until this day.
In the Liturgy for the Day of Atonement is found the
following remarkable passage, which is given from

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. 151

David Levi's edition of the Synagogue service books,
and in his translation. " Before he created anything,
He established His dwelling (the temple) and Yinnon*
Our righteous anointed is departed from us : horror
hath seized us and we have none to justify. He hath
borne the yoke of our iniquities, and of our transgres-
sion, and is wounded because of our transgression.
He beareth our sins on His shoulder that He may first
pardon for our iniquities. We shall be healed by His
wound at the time that the Eternal will create Him
(the Messiah) as a new creature. O bring Him up
from the circle of the earth, raise Him up from Seir, to
assemble us the second time on Lebanon by the hand
of Yinnon." f The Jewish editor, David Levi, en-
deavours to break the force of this passage by a note,
explaining "our righteous anointed" of Josiah. But
as he confesses that the whole passage refers to the
Messiah, with whose name it begins and ends, and as
the Hebrew words for " our righteous anointed One,"
literally, "Messiah our righteousness," are a common
Rabbinic designation of the Messiah, taken from Jer.
xiii. 6, this interpretation can only be regarded as a pole-
mic evasion to avert the Jewish mind from the Christian
interpretation of Isai. liii. Even in Levi's translation
the passage speaks for itself, and as found in the service
for the most solemn day in the whole Jewish year,
proves that the Messianic interpretation was not only
the ancient, but the national reception of the chapter. %
The Rabbinic tradition of two Messiahs, one to suffer
and the other to reign, seems also to be a witness or a
homage to the ancient interpretation of this chapter,
and to the deep national conviction of the need of an

* Yinnon is the Hebrew word translated in the A. V. " shall be con-
tinued," Ps. Ixxii. 17. But according to Jewish tradition, it is a name of the
Messiah. " Yinnon was His name before the sun," i.e. before the creation
of the world. As it comes from the verb "p, to propagate, they seem to have
taken it in the same sense as MSS, "tott, *l£D, and to have understood by it
the Sonship of Messiah.

t " The name of the Messiah, as alluding to Psalm lxxii. IT." (Levi's
Note.)

% Compare also the Prayers for the Feast of Passover, p. 72, where is
another quotation of Isaiah liii. 13, which David Levi himself says means
the true Messiah.

152 A1D9 T0 FAITH. [Essay III.

atonement. That this national persuasion ought to
have some weight, even if not supported by the Kew
Testament, will be admitted by candid readers. It
acquires double weight from the fact that this inter-
pretation is contrary to the worldly hopes of a con-
quering Messiah, so ardently entertained in the days
of Roman domination in Palestine, and to which Rab-
binic polemics still return in order to prove that Jesus
cannot be the Messiah. With such hopes and prej-
udices, the idea of a suffering and despised Messiah
could never have arisen, nor have been entertained, if
it had not previously existed, and been received as
true and genuine. The idea of pardon and salvation
through the sufferings of another was equally contrary
to the self-righteous doctrine of the Pharisees. The ex-
istence and continuance of such an interpretation, is,
therefore, strong proof of its antiquity, and of its
original source. The national interpretation of one of
their own records, under such considerations, ought to
have at least as much weight as the discordant and
controverted opinions of critics living, according to
their own showing, 2300 years after the record was
written, and filled with antecedent prejudices against
a true exegesis.

He must indeed be a man " that leans to his own
understanding," who can lightly esteem the judgment
of the ancient Jewish Church, and the common con-
sent of all Christian scholars for nearly 1800 years, *
and believe that he has found what such a goodly
company have failed to perceive. But the Christian
bows to still higher authority than the common judg-
ment of this mighty host of the great, the good, the
wise, and the learned, in so many ages and nations : he
learns from Him whose Spirit spake in the Prophets,
and guided His disciples and Apostles into all truth.
Christ and His Apostles have interpreted this chapter
of His sufferings, death, and resurrection-glory ; and
the providence of God has verified the interpretation.

* The one exception of Grotius makes the universal agreement the more
striking.

Essay III.] PEOPIIECY. ^53

Not to speak of the past, our eyes still see the fulfil-
ment of this prediction. The most improbable prophecy
in the world was this which predicted that a Jew, de-
spised by his people, numbered amongst transgressors,
cut off out of the land of the living, should, neverthe-
less, prolong his days, be the light of the Gentiles, and
God's salvation to the ends of the earth. And yet
this is what has been accomplished, and is accomplish-
ing itself before our eyes. In spite of all the pride,
prejudice, and power of Greeks and Romans, the
ignorance and fury of barbarian invaders, the self-
sufficiency of human knowledge, the vices of civilisa-
tion, Jesus of Nazareth has triumphed, and triumphs, and
is still the light of the world. The Christian humbly and
thankfully accepts the teaching of the Lord, and the
testimony of God's providence. The wondrous outline
stands vividly marked on the page of prophecy ; the
fulfilment as unmistakably inscribed on the prominent
pages of the world's history. The one answers to the
other, as the mirror to the human face, and he cannot
be mistaken. No microscopic investigations of criti-
cism can make the agreement doubtful. He does not
despise or disregard the labours of even hostile critics.
On the contrary, he carefully considers their every
suggestion, thankfully receives the light which they
have thrown on words and phrases, acknowledges their
diligence, their genius, their learning, and their honesty
so far as their dogmatic prejudices allow them to be
impartial. But Christ has spoken, and by Christ's
words he abides. He, therefore, believes that the
prophets spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost ; that they uttered predictions ; that many of
the most seemingly improbable have been fulfilled, and
are pledges that the remainder shall also be accom-
plished. He cannot join in the unbelieving cry,
" Where is the promise of His coming ? " He does
not believe that " since the fathers fell asleep all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation," but that Christ "in His majesty rides pros-

7*

j 54 AIDS TO FAITn. [Essay IIL

perously on in the cause of truth, and meekness, and
righteousness ; " and " though the vision tarry," he
waits for it, assured that it is " for an appointed time,"
and that " at the end it shall speak and not lie — it will
surely come, it will not tarry."

ESSAY IV.

IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY IV.

1. Introductory remarks— practical ap-

plications and bearings of Ideol-
ogy.

2. Professed objects of Ideology— chief

peculiarity of the system.

3. The contrast between this and older

forms of scepticism.

4. The two systems mutually destruc-

tive.

5. Proposed inquiry into the origin of

the system.

6. The outward world governed by uni-

versal laws.

7. Difficulty of applying general princi-

ples to the events of secular history.
Fiction and history compared.
6. The Ideologist's view of sacred his-
tory accounted for.
0, 10. Contrasted with that taken by
Christians.

tfl. The Christian view illustrated and
confirmed.

32. Alternative set forth— the system of
Ideologists repugnant to conscience,
and to the Englishman's love of
truth.

13. Historical inquiry into the origin and

development of Ideology.

14. The Life of Jesus by Strauss.

15. Early training of Strauss at Tubingen.
10. Strauss at Berlin. Influence and char-
acter of Schleiermacher.

17. Hegel— his position, influence, and

general principles.
IS. Publication of the 'Life of Jesus'—

state of Germany at the time— effects

of the publication.

19. General objects of that work.

20. First part of the work destructive-

way prepared by De Wette, Semler,
Gaoler, and Schleiermacher. Myths.

21. Kesult of the first part— as regards

our Lord's history, and discourses.

22. Strauss's theory as to the ideal truths

which underlie the history of
Christ.

23. Development of Pantheism in the

work on Christian Doctrine.

24. Struggle of the followers of Schleier-

macher and Hegel to shake off the
responsibility. Other developments

of Hegelian principles. F. Eichter,
Bruno Bauer.

25. Rothe's work on the Christian Church

—comparison with Dr. Arnolds
view.

26. Ultimate results of Hegelian princi-

ples. Feuerbach, Communists, Athe-
ists, Revolution of 1848.

27. Reaction. Ideology brought to Eng-

land.

28. Identity of principles as regards a

future state.

29. Church and State.

30. Rejection of supernatural agency —

myths — general scepticism.

31. Position of Ideologists as ministers of

the Church.

32. Doctrinal safeguards.

33. The practice of the Apostles, consid-

ered generally.

34. St. Paul's proceedings in the case of

the fornicator at Corinth, and of
heretical teachers.

35. The practice of the Early Church-

doctrinal limitation not inaugurated
by Constantine. Council of Nice.
The Creed accepted by the State.

36. The practice of our own Church.

The Bible or "Word of God the
foundation of fundamentals — the
Creeds fundamental. Objects of the
Articles. Subscription not required
of the laity, but of ministers.

37. Reason of the difference.

38. Subscription a promise, as regards not

belief, but ministerial acts.

39. Obligation moral, not merely legal.

40. Extent of the obligation. Feelings

of the laity touching the meaning of
subscription.

41. The alleged alienation of the people

from the Church. The fact doubt-
ful— the cause not to be found in
doctrinal teaching. Effects of the
substitution of an ethical system for
Christian doctrines. Position of a
rationalistic minister in using the
Liturgy.

42. True object and duty of the Church.

Probable results of changes.
Concluding remarks.

IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION.

1. The term Ideology is strange, and certainly not
welcome to English ears ; nor is it, perhaps, much to
be feared that the system which bears the name will
find many adherents, or exercise any direct influence
upon the current of religious thought. A summary
rejection may, therefore, at first sight, appear to be an
effectual and satisfactory mode of disposing of its
claims. Such, indeed, might be the case if we consid-
ered merely the abstract speculations with which Ideol-
ogy is connected : but in its applications and bearings
it assumes a very practical form. It touches the most
important questions of morality, the most vital truths
of religion. It affects the veracity or trustworthiness
of the witnesses of revelation, the genuineness and in-
tegrity of its documents, their origin and interpreta-
tion, and by a strictly logical, though not perhaps a
very obvious consequence, the relations between the
Church, her people, and ministers. Such points must
be scrutinized ; the true character of the system, the
principles on which it rests, and its inevitable results
ought to be distinctly ascertained. Should it prove,
as in all former controversies has been the case, that
some great truths, not generally recognized in their
fulness, find in the system, false and pernicious as it
may be, a partial and inadequate expression ; and that
the very objections of ideologists enable us to compre-
hend, somewhat more clearly than heretofore, some es-
sential characteristics of the Christian revelation, that
result, at least, will be welcome to those who watch
with interest, though not without perplexity and ap-
prehension the progress of a religious speculation in

158 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

an age remarkable for fearlessness, and, it may be
hoped, for sincerity, in the pursuit of truth.

2. The object of Ideology, as it is described in the
writings of Strauss, who first presented it in a complete
and systematic form, was to reconcile belief in the spir-
itual truths which he recognized as the ideal basis of
Christianity, with rejection of all the miraculous events,
and by far the largest portion of the narrative, with
which those truths are connected. The rejection rests
' upon an assumption of the utter incredibility of mira-
cles, as irreconcilable with philosophical principles,
and as contrary to experience ; and it is supported, as
we shall see presently, by an unscrupulous use of argu-
ments supplied by various schools of infidelity. But
the chief peculiarity of the system is that, subject to
this assumption, it professes to account for the exist-
ence of a belief in the facts, and for the form in which
the facts are represented, and to explain the real sig-
nificance of narratives involving supernatural elements.
The ideologist, or idealist, asserts that such narratives
are myths, which it would be absurd to regard as true
in the letter, but which may yet be treated with re-
spect, and even with reverence, as symbols and repre-
sentations of ideas which are of permanent interest and
importance to mankind. The facts did not, and could
not, occur in the manner or under the circumstances
described in Scripture, but they may yet be substan-
tially, that is, ideally true, as products of human con-
sciousness, as expressing at least the aspirations or pre-
sentiments of a nature akin to the divine. Many writ-
ers of this school (and Strauss himself in several pas-
sages) adopt, at times, a far more offensive tone, and
do not hesitate to attribute the origin of large portions
of the Gospel narrative to the prepossessions of the
writers, to their ignorance, credulity, and fanaticism,
or to selfish and interested motives. We do not pro-
pose to discuss those speculations. The only form in
which the theory of ideologists is calculated to produce
any effect upon generous and elevated minds, is that
which accepts the ideal principles as true, while it de-

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. ^g

nies the historical character of the relations in which
they are bodied forth.

3. One point strikes lis prime! facie in considering
this theory : and that is the very remarkable contrast
which it exhibits to the position of those who formerly,
either in England or on the continent, denied the ob-
jective facts of revelation. The strongest attacks have
proceeded hitherto, not only from a distinct, but a dia-
metrically opposite point of view. Sceptics and infi-
dels used to argue that the doctrinal statements in the
Bible are opposed to reason, and more especially to the
moral consciousness of man ; and they rejectedthe his-
torical relations chiefly because they involved miracu-
lous attestations to those statements. That position was
at least consistent and intelligible ; the issue one about
which there could be no mistake. The Christian advo-
cate had, of course, to prove that the history was sus-
tained by evidence sufficient to satisfy impartial in-
quirers ; but his great duty was to vindicate the Scrip-
tural representations of the Divine attributes, and the
principles on which God is described as conducting the
moral government of the world. In the new system,
on the contrary, the very adaptation of the doctrines
of Scripture to our spiritual nature is taken as a proof,
or presumption, that the forms in which they are pre-
sented must have been invented or remoulded by the
plastic imagination of man. It is assumed not merely
that the existence of certain feelings, opinions, or as-
pirations accounts for belief in the facts narrated by
the evangelists, but that, taken as a whole, the object-
ive system of revelation sprang out of the belief — was
spontaneously evolved from the half-conscious opera-
tions of the human mind. Thus the need of a recon-
ciliation with God was repudiated as a superstition by
the old sceptic ; according to the idealist, it was the
feeling of such a need which invested the death of an
innocent man with the attributes of a sacrificial atone-
ment. The longing for communion with God, derided
as mysticism by the former, according to the latter,
originated the idea of the incarnation ; while all that

1(50 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

appeared necessary to substantiate the doctrine, in the
way of miraculous attestation or divine endowment,
was supplied by the credulity or imagination of the
followers of one who, at a critical period in the world's
history, concentrated in himself the reverence and ad-
miration of zealous converts. Clustering around one
gracious form, one wise, and loving, and truly sublime
being, human yearnings, human tendernesses, sought
and found in him a visible representation of the Deity.*
In short, according to ideologists, the circumstances of
our Lord's nativity and baptism, His conflict with Sa-
tan, His manifestations of superhuman powers, and
predictions of the immediate or remote future, His res-
urrection and ascension, — indeed, all the cardinal facts
of religion, — are so far from being, as older sceptics
affirmed, opposed to our moral consciousness, that
they are all but adequate representations of the ideal,
which, if it could be realized, would satisfy the very
deepest and most universal aspirations of mankind.

4. Certainly no greater contrast could be imagined
between two classes of men who concur in rejecting the
facts, and employ nearly the same processes in their at-
tempts to discredit the sacred narrative, so far as it in-
volves what they are pleased to call violations f of uni-
versal laws. It may be that the two systems are not
merely contrasted to each other, but that each contains
a principle, which, if disentangled from the errors in
which it is enveloped, may suffice for the exposure and
overthrow of the opposite fallacy. Destroying each
other mutually as systems, each may leave a residuum
of truth available for the defence of the position which
they both assail.

On the one side we have the fact that inquirers,
whom none would hold to be influenced by doctrinal
prejudices and prepossessions, recognize the adaptation

* Strauss in his answer to Steudel makes the whole impulsive force of
Christianity centre in the personality of Jesus. In the concluding chapter of
the ' Leben Jesu,' he acknowledges the peculiar and unique grandeur of our
Lord's person.

t See Butler's remarks on the objections to miracles, 'Analogy/ part ii.
c. iv. His theory, that miracles may be referred to some universal, though
unknown, law has been strangely misrepresented.

Essay I Y.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCEirTION. jqi

of Christian principles * to the wants and instincts of
humanity. This fact not only contradicts, but it utter-
ly subverts, the position of those who assert that the
doctrines are so repugnant to those instincts as to make
the transactions incredible by which they are attested.
The old dry scepticism cannot stand when confronted
with such a recognition of the intrinsic excellence and
spirituality of Christian truth, as is at present actually
professed by the majority, or at any rate by the most
intellectual and influential, among those whom free-
thinkers regard as the leaders and representatives of
modern thought. f That form of disbelief has the
ground cut away from under its feet. It must be re-
garded as a mere subjective impression, or an indica-
tion of disorder in a man's moral nature. The minds
which reject such truths cannot be in what mere philos-
ophers, looking on the whole matter from without,
would admit to be a healthy and normal state.

Still the old sceptic has some stubborn facts on his
side which are wholly inexplicable on the opposite
system. There is the fact that, since the first promul-
gation of Christianity, multitudes have rejected, myri-
ads misunderstood, or are utterly unable to realize its
distinctive doctrines, — those, for instance, which the
most thoughtful idealists regard with admiration. This
is surely incompatible with the theory that the human
mind could of itself have originated or developed the
doctrines, or that it should, consciously or uncon-
sciously, have distorted historical events so as to repre-
sent them in a concrete form. Those doctrines jar too
harshly with the mind in its natural state, excite man's
fears too painfully, to admit the supposition that they
could be the spontaneous product of human conscious-
ness. Under certain conditions, it is true that they

* That was the opinion of all the followers of Hegel until they were
broken into opposite parties by the publication of Strauss's book. Of late
years the denial of such adaptation marked a man's place on the extreme
left, or destructive side.

t In fact the overthrow of the older Rationalism in Germany, which ex-
actly corresponded with English Deism, is claimed as the great work of the
system in which Ideology originated. See Schwartz, Zur Geschichte der
neuesten Theologie, p. 95.

■j62 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

find an echo in the conscience, and give an intelligible
solution to many dark problems of the universe : but
the very first of those conditions is a subjective change
of which neither sceptic nor ideologist can give any
probable account. The religion which involves those
doctrines, which speaks of a futurity of retribution,
which contradicts the most widely spread prejudices,
and sets up an exemplar utterly unlike the heroes and
deities of all nations, is one which certainly could not
have been devised or anticipated by man. Thus scep-
ticism by the very fact of its prevalence overthrows
the position of the ideologist : while the objections and
contradictions of both find at once their explanation
and their refutation in that position which we hold,
not only as a matter of faith, but of experience. Chris-
tian truth, and the facts of revelation by which it is
represented, are in accordance with the fundamental
principles of human reason and conscience ; yet they
are only accepted by man when those principles are
themselves distinctly recognized, — that is, when both
reason and conscience are raised out of the state of
corruption and degradation into which they had unques-
tionably sunk when Christianity was first promulgated.
The accordance removes all a priori moral objections
to the consideration of the evidence by which those
truths and facts are attested, while the actual repug-
nance of so large a portion of mankind to admit the
doctrine is absolutely fatal to the theory of its origina-
tion in human consciousness, apart from an external
supernatural impulse.

5. This argument is not to be set aside as a mere
logomachy, an attempt to neutralize conflicting opin-
ions. It is but one instance among many, of the way
in which truth is elicited by the collision of opposite
errors. Our object, however, is not so much to confute
as to convince, certainly not to exasperate, conscien-
tious opponents ; and this object may perhaps be better
attained by an inquiry how the contemplation of Chris-
tianity, being a perfect realization of a perfect ideal,
could have suggested to any one such a theory as that
which is presented to us by ideologists.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCPJrTION. 1G3

6. In some sense all philosophers admit that^ the
outward world is the result and representation of the
invisible. According to materialists all phenomena
are the products and exhibition of self-sustaining and
self-evolving powers which pervade all nature — that
is, of invisible forces known only by their effects. Ac-
cording to Theists the whole universe is the product
and manifestation of a creating, preserving, and ruling
will. The events of history are in a special sense mani-
festations of the law which that will imposes upon the
development of the human race. The law itself is dis-
coverable to a certain extent by reflection upon those
events ; Christians believe that it is revealed fully in
the sacred writings. All facts indeed are in some sense
the concrete results and expression of some absolute
principle, some unseen power, some general law.*
There is in reality no such thing as a dead matter of
fact, no chance, no casual occurrence, in the history of
the world. Joined one to the other in an unbroken
series of cause and effect, every fact, every event finds
its necessary place in the universal order ;^ each is a link
in that chain, which according to materialists had no
beginning and will have no end, which according to
Theists is fastened by each extremity to the throneof
God. Christians accept the statement that all exist-
ences are the result of universal law, but they hold
that law to be the expression of a supreme intellect
and infinite love : deriving its force solely from the will
of God.

7. Here we stand on a platform on which, whether
agreed or not, we can at least understand our relative
positions. We may advance a stage further, and that
brings us to the real issue. It may be true, that in a
general survey of history, principles of law and order
are discernible ; but it is certain that the difficulty is
great, if not insuperable, when we seek to ascertain

* This truth is recognized quite as distinctly by Butler and all other great
champions of Revelation as by its strongest opponents. " All reasonable
' men know certainly tbat there cannot be any such thing as chance ; and con-
clude that the things which have this appearance are the results of general
laws, and may be reduced into them." Analogy, ii. c iv. § 3.

164 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV

the operations of those principles in individual cases,*
when we would apply them to account for events re-
corded by secular historians. When thought sweeps
over a wide expanse, it is confused by the multiplicity
of apparently abnormal and contradictory phenomena —

" It is most bard, with an untroubled ear,
Those dark inwoven harmonies to hear."

Certain personages stand forth from time to time, in
grand critical epochs of the world's development, as
representative men, but seldom, if ever, are they ade-
quate representatives of high, never of the highest
principles.! Striking indications are given of an un-
seen presence by which all processes are guided, and
of ends which all subordinate occurrences subserve.
But over the whole there is a mist, sometimes broken,
sometimes seeming to transmit light from a higher
sphere, but for the most part dense and impenetrable.
Aberrations and inconsistencies, contradictions and di-
vergencies, confound the philosophic reader of history,
in the attempt to arrive at a distinct perception of the
general principles, the universal laws, which underlie
and govern the complicated series of external events.

One unquestionable result of this fact requires
special attention. The discrepancy between events as
they occur in secular history, and the absolute ideas
or principles which all events rightly understood ex-
emplify and represent, is in point of fact so far recog-
nized by the human mind, that whenever we read a
narrative in which the ideal and real are presented in
perfect accordance, we are all but irresistibly impressed
with the conviction that it must be fictitious. Fiction,
as Aristotle long since taught, is more catholic than

* Thus Butler, 1. c. : " It is but an exceeding little way, and in but few
respects, that we can trace up the natural course of things before us to gen-
eral laws." Mr. Jowett has said, in an essay of most melancholy tendency,
" In the study of ethnology, or geology, in the records of our own or past
times, a curtain drops over the Divine presence." — On the Epistles of St. Paul,
vol. ii., p. 433, 2nd edition.

t This position and its bearings upon Ideologists were discussed with
great ability and persuasiveness by Ullmann in the ' Studien und Kritiken,'
1836, No. 3. This treatise, which was afterwards reprinted with the title
'Historisch oder Mythiscb,' induced Strauss himself to modify the conclusion
of his ' Leben Jesu.'

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION.

1G5

reality ; that is, it is a more obvious and perfect exem-
plification of general principles. A perfectly good,
and entirely consistent man, a life in which all events
should be so ordered as to harmonize with our ideas
of fitness and justice, a series of events in which the
moral government of the Supreme Being should be out-
wardly and demonstrably exemplified, would seem to
us from a purely secular point of view a sheer impossi-
bility. The Hegelian is right, so far as ordinary men
and ordinary events are concerned, in his theory that
the ideal is ever striving for realization, but that it
never is realized. That is an old truth which our own
Hooker has stated in terms at once more simple and
accurate — " All things besides, God excepted, are some-
what in possibility which as yet they are not in act." *
The map of a country drawn in outlines of geometrical
symmetry, a narrative in which all events are the de-
velopment of some great principle and conduce to some
one intelligible result, alike produce the impression of
unreality. We do not see such things. They are con-
trary to experience. Scarcely any amount of external
evidence would satisfy us of their truth.

It is just at this point that the controversy between
the Christian and the Ideologist arises. The question
is simply this : are the same principles applicable to
secular history and to the records of a scheme which
is professedly one of divine interpositions ? f We see
perfectly well that if they were applicable, the conclu-
sions of the ideologist could scarcely be controverted.
To one who does not view the sacred narrative as a
thing apart, not merely in certain details, but in its
entire construction, resting altogether upon different
principles from those which he is accustomed to apply
in historical investigations, its facts, whether or not
what is commonly called miraculous, have prima facie
this characteristic of fiction. The long series of events
recorded in the Bible, connected for ages with one
family, but involving in its consequences all the des-
tinies of mankind, unquestionably exemplifies certain

* E. P. i. 5. t See, for instance, Strauss's 'Lcbeu Jesu,' Einleitung, § 8.

IQQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

ideal principles, and that throughout and completely,
in its organic structure and in its several parts. In the
opinion of one who dismisses, without argument, all
notions of supernatural intervention, such a fact is un-
accountable, excepting upon the supposition that the
history has been invented or essentially changed in
character by the writers who have transmitted the
traditional records in their actual state. Whether he
attribute this to design, to the influence of high or low
feelings, to superstition, ignorance, prejudice, or, on
the other hand, to noble and generous aspirations, may
be admitted to be a matter of considerable import so
far as regards his own spiritual state ; * but the result
is alike destructive so far as regards the bearings of the
argument upon the substantial verity of the Scriptures.
The more solemn and majestic the events, the more
completely in the ideologist's mind do they bear the
essential character of a myth. In no portion of Holy
Writ is such criticism more destructive than in that
which presents to us the Life of our Lord — that perfect
embodiment of an ideal, in itself without a parallel, in
its realization transcending all conceptions of the human
mind.f

0. We thus account for the position of the ideolo-
gist, and in accounting for it, we seem to gain a singu-
larly distinct perception of what is surely the most
positive and peculiar characteristic of Christianity.
The attributes, the very nature of God, are manifested
in the government of the world, viewed by the light of
Scripture, but most specially and completely in the
Person and works of the Son. Just in this point con-
sists the real contrast between sacred and profane his-
tory. Profane history may not, and indeed it cannot
contradict, but it certainly does not distinctly teach,

* All these influences are adopted by Strauss, as acting in co-ordination
with the philosophical mythus, that which clothes in the garb of historical
narrative a simple thought, a precept or idea of the time. L. J., Einleitung,
§ 8.

t Thus even Grotz, quoted in the 'Westminster Review/ July 1861.
Strauss speaks scarcely less strongly of the marvellous and unrivalled beauty
of the conception. See his answer to Ullmann, ' Vergangliches und Bleiben.'
1839.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. iq>j

some of the most momentous and necessary truths —
such as the unity of God, the unity of the human race,
the unity of human history, the universal principles of
morality, or the systematic development of the pur-
poses of an almighty and loving will. Historians, ex-
cepting so far as they have drawn light from other
sources, do not in point of fact distinctly set forth all
or any of these truths. Sacred history teaches them
all, and teaches them not by mere abstractions, but by
the representation of events in which our conceptions
of what is right, reasonable, and desirable, find a per-
fect satisfaction. Our only postulate is one which can-
not be denied on rational grounds by any but atheists*
— that God has the will and the power of making Him-
self known to His creatures. That granted, the reason-
ableness and therefore the probability of such a man-
ifestation of Himself can scarcely be denied. The in-
tellect, freed from the shackles of sin and knowledge
falsely so called, fastens with joy upon the one clue to
the labyrinthine mazes of speculation. Holding it a
priori to be possible that the Divine love may choose
thus to deliver us from dark and dreary bewilderment,
we gladly accept the proofs that such has been His
gracious will. We believe that in another state the
ideal will be thoroughly and universally realized, that
each act and each existence, in its place and its degree,
will be then a perfect exemplification of some eternal
reality ; and of this we are equally convinced that a
foretaste and anticipation of that future harmony has
been vouchsafed in the Scriptural narrative, most es-
pecially in the life and person of Jesus Christ.

10. It is a strange and instructive contrast which is
thus presented between the effects of the Scriptural
narrative upon the ideologist and upon the simple-
hearted Christian. The traces of harmonious accord-

* Including all schools of Pantheism which deny the consciousness of
God, and moreover those Deists who maintain the absolute necessity of all
manifestations of the Divine nature in the world— who make the world, so to
speak, the complete manifestation and body of the Deity. Such are J. H.
Fichte, and C. II. Weisse, Schwartz, &c, in Germany; F. Newman (if, in-
deed, he recognizes at present any personal consciousness in God), and many
others, in England.

163 A1DS T0 FAITn- [Essay IV.

anco impress the former with the conviction that he
is listening to the record of a dream — beautiful it may
be, and significant, — the dream of a poet, or a saint, of
a spirit full of divine yearnings and sympathies, but
still a dream — an empty, unsubstantial dream. The
Christian sees in that accordance the evidence of a
divine power ; of all effects upon his mind the very
last would be a doubt as to the reality of the objective
facts which show how that power has been exerted for
the regeneration of man.

11. This is a strong position to occupy, a secure
resting-place for the spirit. We may profitably dwell
somewhat in detail upon the thoughts which it sug-
gests. Every fact in the life of our Master is in accord-
ance with a spiritual principle which it actually and
completely represents. Man, conscious of inherent
weakness, longs for union with God. In the incarna-
tion, God and man become one.

Man feels himself exposed to a strange fascination
which attracts him towards evil and draws him away
from God. In Christ he meets, baffles, and overcomes,
the personal agent of all temptation. Man feels that
he is a slave to nature, over which a sure instinct tells
him that he is destined to rule. In Christ he exercises
that dominion, making all physical forces subservient
to his will. Man fears disease, affliction, and bereave-
ment. In Christ all sorrows become medicinal, and
conduce to the perfection of our renewed nature. Man
has two great foes — sin, and death the penalty of sin.
Christ crushes sin, and expels it from His dominions ;
death He converts into the last best friend, the opener
of the portals of eternal life. Moved by the Spirit of
God, the mind of man from age to age has uttered aspira-
tions, more or less imperfectly comprehended, for a Sav-
iour, a righteous Lord, a manifestation of God in a liv-
ing human Person. One by one the characteristics of
such a Person were traced by the spirit of prophecy : all
the conditions of that manifestation, the object of His
coming, the time, the circumstances, the various signs
by which He might be recognized, were clearly pre-

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 1(59

dieted ; those predictions were graven upon the hearts
of the Israelites, and were even partially known to the
Gentiles.* In Jesus, by a combination of circumstan-
ces which seems fortuitous, and, so far as human agents
were concerned, beyond all question were undesigned,
those predictions were fulfilled, apparent contradictions
were reconciled ; and, in a higher sense than the most
gifted seers had imagined, those characteristics were
exemplified. We see in Jesus perfect man, the one
normal, ideal man, -the one representative of the type
which was in the thought of God when He moulded
the frame of Adam, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life.f In personal union with that perfect
man we are taught to discern the living "Word, the Son
of God. If the whole structure of our religion be not
a baseless vision, if all our hopes be not a miserable de-
lusion, it is true, simply and absolutely true, that in
that Person the perfect ideal is perfectly real. We ex-
pect, therefore, to find — in fact we should be confounded
if we did not find — in the history of the God-man:}: just
that harmony, unity, and complete interpenetration of
all that is good and beautiful in abstract principles,
that perfect representation of inward spiritual truths,
of which genius has dreamed, but which it has vainly
striven to realize. We feel that such a history must be
sacramental. And thus, in the very facts which create
distrust in the ideologist, we find the strongest con-
firmation of our faith. We are entitled to say to him
— You cannot surely be so unreasonable as to call upon

* Strauss adopts the view that the whole life of Jesus, all that He should
or would do, had an ideal existence in the Jewish mind long before His birth.
Einleitung, § 11.

+ This thought, as might be expected, is worked out very thoroughly by
the best divines of modern Germany; but it belongs to the old schools of
Hebrew exegesis, or, to speak more correctly, underlies all the Biblical in-
timation of the future Messiah's person and work. (See the account of the
Adam Cadmon in Dorner's ' Einleitung to his Christology.') It is not sur-
prising, when we consider the immense importance of the principle, that the
followers of opposite and conflicting systems of philosophy should have
claimed it for their own leaders. The Hegelians were especially anxious to
prove that in its philosophic form the truth was recognized and taught by
Hegel. See Goschel, Von Gott, dem Menschen und dem Gottmenschen.

% BtdvOpconos, a most pregnant term, used very frequently by the Greek
Fathers.

8

270 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

us to give up any part of what you must admit to be a
consistent and complete realization of that which you
profess to recognize as good and beautiful simply on
the ground that it is too good, too beautiful, to be
true.* We have, as you must confess, full access to the
ideal sphere in which the soul may expatiate with de-
light. You cannot wish us to pass over to you, with
nothing to gain, with so much to lose, even in your
opinion, in our own not less than all. You offer us, in
fact, nothing but the substitution of moral and intel-
lectual speculations of the most bewildering character,
in place of difficulties which a simple faith enables a
sound reason practically to overcome. We, on the con-
trary, have every motive to call on you to pass over
to our side : what you have to sacrifice is a mere no-
tion, a novel one even in the schools of philosophy,
as to the incredibility of an external and perfect mani-
festation of the divine. What you have to gain is the
realization of the dearest and deepest hopes of human-
ity— hopes which nothing short of such a realization
can satisfy and fulfil.

12. It would be a good thing if our countrymen,
and especially our younger countrymen, would dis-
tinctly contemplate the alternative which they must
in consistency adopt when the claims of the Scriptural
narrative are confronted with ideologists. We may
owe something even to the fearless speculators who,
obscure and perplexing as their writings are in other
respects, have at least brought this question to a defi-
nite issue. For young men of active and liberal spirits
(indeed, for all who venture into the region of specula-
tive inquiry, for those more especially who hang about
its outskirts) the chief danger is that they may adopt
opinions which are intrinsically antagonistic to truth,
without any suspicion of their tendencies and neces-
sary results. It is well that such tendencies are at any
rate brought out distinctly. Some few may possibly
accept the conclusions to which the speculations lead :

* Strauss, speaking of the theory in the very imperfect form which was
given to it by Schleiennacher, calls it a beautiful effort of thought.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. ^1

but even for them it may be better that they should
arrive rapidly at the end, and find by experience its
barrenness and emptiness. The recoil from the dreary
void of sceptical negation has been to some, and those
no ignoble spirits, the first movement towards the re-
covery of truth. But the great majority of Englishmen
are extremely unlikely, even for a season, to find any
resting-place in a system which makes the deepest and
most practical convictions dependent upon metaphysi-
cal abstractions, depriving them of the foundation of
positive objective facts.* Once assured that ideology
simply means denial of the veracity of the writers who
bear witness to miraculous facts — of the truth of the
whole, or of any considerable portion of the book, in
which it nevertheless recognizes utterances of a divine
spirit, they will turn aside in contempt from what
must seem to them a suicidal inconsistency. One great
characteristic of Englishmen — the characteristic, in fact,
on which they may justly rest their claims to a fore-
most (indeed the foremost) position among the repre-
sentative races of humanity — is the belief in, and the
love of, positive objective truth. Once convinced of
the untruthfulness of a writer, no ingenuity of reason-
ing, no fascination of style, no adaptation of his state-
ments to their feelings or prejudices, will induce them
to listen to his words. They may be slow to discern
the symptoms of untruthfulness, may be deceived and
misled, but they will have but one short word to
designate what they are once convinced has no founda-

* Such, too, was the state of feeling in Germany. A writer, whose bias
is utterly opposed to orthodoxy, declares truly that the orthodox reaction
originated among men connected with public life — leaders of the patriotic
outburst— that the religious systems of the Berlin schools were too spiritual-
istic, too thin and fine drawn, too sentimental and indefinite to produce
practical results. What men wanted was a right, massive, sturdy, popular
Christianity, such as Luther preached. "In truth there was a deep chasm
between the new intellectual character (Geistesbildung) presented by the
leaders in philosophy and poetry, and the wants of the people. See Schwartz,
' Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie,' p. 67. The whole chapter is in-
structive, as showing the utter unfitness of Rationalism in any of its forms,
Idealism included, to act on the moral and spiritual life of the people—that
is, to do the special and peculiar work of Christianity. A form of religion
which admits that incapacity stands self-condemned. The arguments of
Origen against Celsus are particularly worthy c>f consideration in their bear-
ings upon this question. See lib. vi. 2, and vii. 59, GO.

172 AID3 T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

tion in fact. Tlie very last position which they will
admit as possible, or tolerate as defensible, is, that
truths of infinite import should have been transmitted
from the divine to the human intelligence by unve-
racious witnesses, or through the medium of events dis-
torted by enthusiasts. The Englishman may be nar-
row-minded or prejudiced, unapt to deal with abstract
speculations ; but he has at least had his training, — he
has been accustomed to weigh evidence, to seek for
matter of fact truth in the first place, and to satisfy
himself as to the good faith and correct information of
those from whom he expects to receive knowledge or
instruction. One thing with him is fixed and certain ;
whatever else may be doubtful, this at least is sure —
a narrative purporting to be one of positive facts,
which is wholly or in any essential or considerable
portion untrue, can have no connection with the Di-
vine, and cannot have any beneficial influence upon
mankind. As for the doctrines which are based upon
it, or inseparably bound up with it, they must have
their origin in another region than that of light. He
will not allow himself to be entangled in the mazes
of speculation. Without troubling himself as to the
direction in which they may lead him, he will stop at
the threshold : he will say — Before I go one step further,
let me know what you say to our Lord's miracles — to
the miracle of miracles, the Resurrection. Is it a fact
or not ? As for the doctrine, which, as you say, it may
represent, we may inquire about that hereafter ; but
let us first know on what we stand — on the shifting
quicksands of opinion, or on the solid ground of pos-
itive objective fact.

13. It may be said that it is unfair to press a man,
and by urging the consequences of his opinions, to
drive him from a position in which even for a time he
may find refuge from utter unbelief. This considera-
tion would undoubtedly have great weight if the ques-
tion regarded only the speculative inquirer. Charity
cannot be carried too far in judging any man's motives,
in bearing with his perplexities, and putting the most

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCEIPTION. 2*3

favourable construction upon liis words : but when a
man propounds his opinions publicly, works them up
into an elaborate system, and commends them by all
the graces and artifices of rhetoric, his object is evi-
dently not so much to satisfy his own mind, as to influ-
ence the minds of others ; and for their sake it is neces-
sary to ascertain his meaning, and to show clearly the
principles upon which his system rests, and the conse-
quences which it involves. Above all, is this our duty
when those principles are introduced rather by insinu-
ation than by direct assertion, and are directly connected
with the recommendation of disingenuous acts, by
which the safeguards of religion are undermined. We
consider it a fortunate circumstance that, on the first
appearance of ideology, so much of its true character
has been disclosed. In order, however, thoroughly to
comprehend its bearings, and to prove its internal and
necessary connection with the ultimate principles of
unbelief, it will be expedient to give some account of
its origination and development in Germany. Some
of the facts which follow are unknown to the gener-
ality of English readers; they certainly ought to be
known by all who feel interested in the progress and
tendencies of Rationalism in its most ingenious and
subtle form.

14 It has been already stated that ideology was
first presented as a distinct and complete system in the
writings of Strauss. His Life of Jesus is universally
recognized as the beginning of a new epoch in theolog-
ical speculations. The writer himself has lately as-
serted, with characteristic arrogance, that no work of
any importance has since been written upon any por-
tion of the evangelical narrative without reference to
his book. The vaunt, as we shall see, is not an empty
one. That work did concentrate and systematize all
that infidelity had previously advanced or suggested
against the credibility of the Gospels and the whole
system of Christianity as an objective revelation. The
destructive criticism of rationalists, and the mysticism
of Hegel, were brought together ; that to discredit the

174 AIDS T0 FAITn- [Essay IV.

facts of revelation, this to supply a new foundation for
the speculations which Strauss proposes as the substi-
tute for historical Christianity.

15. By education and circumstances, and also, it
must be admitted, by some rare and eminent gifts,
Strauss was qualified for the position he assumed. He
was brought up at Tubingen, an university which, in
in its retention of ancient forms of discipline, still bears
more resemblance to Oxford than to any institution in
Germany; and, when he was a student, it was justly
regarded as the stronghold of Lutheran orthodoxy.
Among others less widely known, but sound in the
faith,— such as Storr, Flatt, and Steudel, — Tubingen
boasts of the great name of Bengel. In that school
Strauss learned somewhat of the nature of the princi-
ples which he was to attack. Under F. C. Baur, since
known as the most subtle and learned of neologians,
but whose tendencies were then scarcely suspected, he
acquired the habit of sceptical investigation, and im-
bibed a rooted antipathy to what the Germans call
" supernaturalism" — that is, the recognition of a mirac-
ulous element in religion. Free from any taint of sen-
suality, he bore a high character, to which his influence
among the students and professors may in part be attrib-
uted. On the other hand, utterly indifferent to the
tendencies or results of his inquiries, singularly devoid
of geniality or sympathy, he evinced on all occasions
a supercilious disregard for feelings which he might
wound, combined with a total absence of reverence for
the divine. His intellect was keen and clear ; his nat-
ural aptitude for dialectical subtilties was developed
by intense application : he had also a power, not com-
mon in any country, and extremely rare in his own,
that of presenting the results of his labours in an intel-
ligible and interesting form, with the advantages of ar-
tistic arrangement and a perspicuous style.

16. In the year 1831, Strauss, until then a Repetent
or assistant tutor at Tubingen, went to Berlin, at that
time the centre of all speculative movements in the-
ology and philosophy. Schleiermacher stood at the

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 2^5

head. Few men have exercised a wider or more pow-
erful influence. His vast learning and vigorous intel-
lect ; his lively and persuasive eloquence ; above all,
his peculiar mode of inculcating religious principles,
attracted many of the noblest and most powerful
minds. The characteristic of his system was the
prominence which he gave to religious feeling — sub-
jective feeling was to him and the most influential of
his followers the one test both of the importance and
reality of spiritual truths : and to his teaching may be
traced that aversion to what is called dogmatism, which
distinguishes many of our own writers who, without
adopting all his views, have passed through his school.
His influence over Strauss, however, depended upon
other qualities. Schleiermacher combined with a pe-
culiarly genial and winning sweetness of character,
and with a dreamy but graceful and attractive senti-
mentalism, a no less remarkable talent for sarcastic and
reckless criticism. iNo man was more acute in detect-
ing flaws, none more unscrupulous in exposing what he
deemed to be inconsistencies. None had hitherto gone
so far in discrediting large portions of the Scriptural
narrative, or in assailing the authenticity of canonical
books.* When Strauss came to Berlin, Schleiermacher

* This statement may seem too harsh. Schwartz, however, a critic who
has the greatest admiration and even reverence for Schleiermacher, observes
that the critical processes by which Strauss attempted to overthrow the
sacred history were learned in the school of Schleiermacher. "Originating
with Sender and Eichhorn, they had been developed in rationalistic circles,
and readied their Jiighest 2^oint in the labours of De Wette, Schleiermacher,
and Gieseler." Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, p. 83. A most im-
portant statement for the young student of German theology. Gieseler him-
self gives the following account of that great man's principles : — " Schleier-
macher went very far in his concessions to modern opinion. He admitted
that the piety of a Pantheist might be identical with that of a Monotheist, and
reconcilable even with Christianity. That piety, moreover, could coexist
with the theory which, denying the continuance of personal existence, re-
gards the common spirit of humanity as the source of individual souls, the
true living unity, of which alone eternity and immortality can be predicated ;
individual souls being its transitory actions, or manifestations. For the
Christian as such there is no guarantee for personal duration, save that which
is found in the belief of the eternal union of the Divine Essence with the
human nature in Christ. The historical connection of Christianity with
Judaism is external, precisely the same as with heathenism— hence he assigns
to the Old Testament no normal authority. Angels are creatures of the
imagination — in the idea of the devil he finds an internal contradiction — but
he consents to retain angels and devils for liturgical use. The resurrection of

1>jq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

had been giving a course of lectures on the life of
Jesus, which are characterized by a friendly critic as
full of acute combinations and destructive scepticism.
Those lectures were, indeed, the chief attraction which
drew him thither.* They gave the strongest impulse
to his own work of demolition.

IT. It was not, however, in the system of Schleicr-
macher that Strauss found the true key to his own posi-
tion. He was abundantly supplied with weapons for
attack. Bationalists and sentimentalists had under-
mined the outworks of revelation : but he saw plainly
that something more and something different was
needed to account for the origin of Christianity ; and
it was perfectly clear to him that the battered and dis-
figured fabric of what he regarded as mere superstition
could not be demolished and swept away, unless it
were displaced by a system better calculated to meet
the requirements of the human mind.

It seems strange that he should have fixed upon
TIegelianism for that purpose ; for Hegel, then in the
full noontide of his influence, was regarded as the bul-
wark of orthodox conservatism both in church and
state. The fundamental doctrines of religion, the dog-
matic forms of the church, even the most abstruse and
difficult speculations of theologians and schoolmen,
were at that very time maintained by professors of the
school of Hegel, who were recognized by him as faith-
ful and intelligent expositors of his views. It was be-
lieved that he had effected a real and permanent recon-
ciliation between philosophy and religion. Faith and
knowledge henceforth were to work together in perfect
harmony ; all apparent contradictions were to be ab-
sorbed ; all perplexing problems to find a solution in
the higher sphere of metaphysical abstraction. A new

the body and the last judgment are to be understood not as positive truths,
but as the outward representations of general truths. Eternal damnation is
rejected as inconceivable." — Kircheugeschichte der neuesten Zeit, p. 240.

* See Schwartz, 1. c. Strauss himself says that he procured the MS. of
the lectures which had been given before his arrival. He points out the dif-
ference between his own views and those of Schleiermacher, who wished to
retain, by help of naturalistic interpretations, the substance of the Gospel
narration. His statement is quite compatible with that of Schwartz.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. j^y

system of optimism was founded, which acknowledged
the State not merely as a necessary organization, but as
the highest realization of the ideal of society, and re-
jected all factious and democratic tendencies as perni-
cious errors ; while, in their ecclesiastical tendencies,
Hegel's principles seemed rather to verge towards Ro-
manism than towards the dissolution of all formal au-
thority, which appeared imminent as a development of
infidelity under the thin disguise of rational Protes-
tantism. He was, in fact, by taste, habits, and disposi-
tion a conservative, both as regarded the outward frame-
work of church and state, and the dogmatic represen-
tation of religious truths. It may seem strange ; but
it was a proof of the clear insight and vigorous intel-
lect of Strauss, that in the fundamental principles of
that philosopher's system, he discerned the motive
power which he required to overthrow all which it ap-
peared to accept so unreservedly and to defend with
unprecedented success.

We can scarcely hope, and will not attempt, to state
those principles in a clear or even intelligible form ;
but some of the results, as Strauss apprehended and
applied them, are practical enough. His exposition,
moreover, has been justified both by the adhesion of
a considerable number of those who were once the
stanchest maintainers of their master's orthodoxy, and
by the ultimate overthrow of the system itself, which
is now, in the form which Hegel gave it, altogether
a thing of the past.*" Under the abstruse and cloudy
statements of that philosopher,f Strauss saw clearly

* M. Sclierer says — " II a fait faillite, et c'est le positivisme qui a pris la
suite de ses affaires?' And elsewhere — " Ce bullc de savou a creve depuis
longtemps."

t Hegel taught that the universe is but a continuous evolution of an in-
finite potentiality ; that the absolute is not found either in the ideal sub-
stratum, which is not a positive existence, or in matter of fact phenomena,
which have no permanent reality, but in a perpetual process of self-develop-
ment. Whatever exists has a necessary but a merely transitory existence.
The ideal is ever tending to realization, but is never perfectly, and cannot be
permanently, realized. It was a question among his followers whether he
regarded Christianity, in the Person of its Founder, as an exception from
these sweeping conclusions — whether his system was compatible with Theism.
It seems to me scarcely possible to reconcile many statements in his first
considerable work (the ' Phanomenologie des Geistes') with belief in a per-

178 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

involved the positive denial of the personality of the
Godhead, the assertion of the phenomenal and evanes-
cent, the incomplete and inadequate character of all
existences, the absorption of individuality ; in short,
a complete system of pantheism, more idealistic than
any previous development, and at the same time more
capable of explaining the events of history both profane
and sacred.

18. Strauss took some time to prepare a work in
which he applied these principles to the overthrow of
Christianity. The 'Life of Jesus' was published in
1835. It appeared at a period of outward calm ; there
was a singular cessation just then of controversy, a
general feeling of security. Hegel had been dead four
years. He had departed, so to speak, in the odour of
orthodoxy. Marheineke, Daub, and Gdschel were recog-
nized as true expositors of his system, and as sound de-
fenders of the faith. Schleiermacher, too, was gone.
His followers claimed for him the merit of having de-
stroyed the older forms of rationalism, which had sunk
into utter contempt. ISTeander at Berlin, Tholuck at
Halle, Steudel at Tubingen, and a host of theologians
of various shades of opinion, ranging from orthodoxy
to neology, but animated for the most part by deep
Christian sympathies, occupied the professorial chairs ;
while a strong and united band of men, sound in the
old Bible orthodoxy, wrought more directly upon the
popular mind through the pulpit. The effect of the
publication of Strauss's book is indescribable. Friends
and enemies cannot find words strong enough to express
the consternation, the horror and indignation of all who

sonal God. It is certain that no Christian theologians now accept the appli-
cations of his general principles to Christian dogmas. Chalybreus admits
the "comfortless results" of the whole system. On the attempts of Mar-
heineke and Goschel, some valuable remarks may be read in Gieseler's
' Kirchengeschichte d. n. Z.,' p. 242. Strauss also gives a clear account of
the disputes between the scholars of Hegel in his ' Glaubenslehre,' p. 520 if.
It is, however, certain that Hegel wished to maintain religion — that he re-

garded the establishment of Theism as the highest problem and work of

destructive cri'"
ing. even to pi
secular writers, as Niebuhr. His last work, on the Philosophy of Religion,

philosophy, and utterly detested all sceptical and destructive criticism,
especially* that of Schleiermacher — an aversion extending, even to purely

is full of beautiful and devout aspirations: whether they are consistent with
his philosophy or not, is another question.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 179

retained a vestige of reverence for religion. An electric
shock running through all bosoms, a trumpet sounding
the signal for a conflict for life and death, an earthquake
shaking the foundations of all human hopes ; such are the
terms which historians use in speaking of the shock.*
Our own time has lately had an example of the effect
which is produced when men known only as able, indus-
trious scholars, of unspotted character, and exemplary in
all personal relations, come forward as the opponents
of truths which they are bound to uphold. The excite-
ment and panic, if panic it can be called which brought
hosts of combatants to the front of the battle, had then
a further justification in the talents, unity of purpose,
straightforward audacity of the author — in his thorough
mastery of all the weapons of attack, in the coherence
of his philosophical principles — principles, as we have
shown already, accepted by multitudes of thoughtful
men — above all in the state of the public mind, shaken
by rationalism, distrustful of its guides, unable to com-
prehend the position of the recognized defenders of
religion, and tossed to and fro by conflicting systems
of doctrine and interpretation. Strauss was at least a
brave and open foe, showed his true colours, and nailed
them to the mast, and met every attack manfully, —
open as he certainly was to the imputation of making
a dishonest use of a position entrusted to him for the
defence of Christianity.

19. In that work Strauss had two distinct objects.
The first was to set aside all supernatural events, to prove
that the Divine did not manifest itself in the manner
related, and that the actual occurrences were not di-
vine.f The other was to set up a system in which all
that Christianity attempts to accomplish should be dis-
entangled from its imperfect form, and developed, by

* Compare Schwartz, Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, and M. E.
Scherer, Revue des Deux Mondes, Feb. 1861 ; and Gieseler. Strauss himself
speaks with great exultation of the shrieks of believers. See the introduction
to his second edition.

\ Introduction, § 1. See also his Streitschriften, partiii., p. 59. He gives
a full account of the original plan of his work (showing that the second part

was that to which he attached most importance) in the treatise ' Verhaltniss
egel'schen Philosophic zur Kritik.'

der Hegel'

18q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

a philosophical process, from universal and permanent
truths.

20. In the first part of the work Strauss collected all
the objections which a remorseless criticism had raised
against the historical veracity of the sacred writers :
he completed them, gave them a sharper point and
keener edge, combined them in a systematic form, and
reduced them to a fundamental thought.* De "Wette
had already laid down the position, "that all men of
cultivated minds rejected the miraculous narratives of
the Bible, and that the only question was how to ac-
count for their origin.f Strauss addressed himself to
that question. First laying down far more broadly the
general position, that miracles are d priori incredible,
on the ground that the workings of the Divine in the
world proceed in accordance with fixed, unvarying,
and universal laws, which utterly exclude the possi-
bility of miracles, \ he refers all accounts of supernatu-
ral interventions to one origin — that of Myths. Here
again he adopts what sceptics or infidels had previously
suggested. Sender had applied to the account of
Samson and Esther the saying of Heyne, that all the his-
tory and philosophy of primitive antiquity originated
in myths. Yater, and still more decidedly De Wette,
had advocated the mythical interpretation of a large
portion of the Old Testament § history. But, as Strauss
complains, that system had been applied inconsistently
and timidly even to the Old Testament, and had stood
side by side with naturalistic interpretations, while few
had ventured to bring it to bear upon any portion of
the Gospel narrative. Yet even here the way had been
prepared. Schleiermacher had not hesitated to call the
listory of the Temptation a myth. Gabler, and others

* Schwartz, v Zur Geschichte dcr neuesten Theologie,' p. 104.

t That position was taken in the work which in Germany, some thirty
years ago, was put into my hands as an introduction to the study of the
ilcbrew'Scriptures.

X Strauss uses precisely the same language as Baden Powell. See his
Introduction, vol. i. p. 71 of the English translation. In p. 87, § 16, he gives
the marks by which the unhistorical character of a narrative may be h priori
demonstrated — the principal is the impossibility of any arbitrary act of inter-
position by the absolute cause.

§ Kritik der Mosaischen Geschichte, quoted by Strauss. Introduction, § 8.

111

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. Igj

of his school, held that all portions of the narrative
which involved angelic appearances had the essential
characteristics of myth. Some theologians had gone so
far as to bring the details, first of the Nativity, and
then of the Resurrection, under the same category.
The barriers had been thrown down, and all that re-
mained for Strauss to do was to carry out the principle
consistently into the whole structure of the New Testa-
ment. To use his own words : " Others had driven
through the grand portal of myths into the evangelical
history, and had passed out again by the same ; but
as for all the intermediate portions, they were contented
to pursue the crooked and laborious paths of natural
interpretation." He left himself no portion of our
Lord's life untouched. He saw too clearly the internal
coherence of all its parts ; he discerned the unity of
the principles which underlie all its phenomena : all
or nothing must be admitted. Rejecting with disdain
the subterfuges of rationalist and semi-rationalist, he
would not, as he says, set up the authority of one
Evangelist against another. The testimony of one is
worth as much, or to speak more correctly, is worth
as little as the others.* A helium omnium contra
omnes is waged ; from beginning to end he finds no
single spot "of firm historical ground, scarcely any
mixture of ascertainable fact, amid the legendary and
mythical representations^

Strauss enters, of course, fully into the investiga-
tion of myths, J which had already been classified under
three heads ; the historical, which confound the natu-
ral and supernatural ; the philosophical, which clothe in

* Schwartz, Zur Geschichte, p. 110.

f To allow time for such a transmutation of history, which, as all historians
agree, is only possible in times when letters are unknown or unused, when
events are transmitted by ignorance and superstition, Strauss was driven to
the theory, that all the Gospel narratives were the product of the second cen-
tury, a theory which is admitted universally, even by unchristian critics, to
be irreconcilable with facts: with the failure of that theory the whole myth-
ical system collapses. Dr. Arnold, who had not read the book, judging of it
merely from a review, saw, of course, this point. " The idea of men writing
mythic histories between the time of Livy and Tacitus, and St. Paul mistaking
such for realities ! " life, ii. p. 58.

% L. J., Introduction, p. 26.

jg2 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

the garb of historical narrative some thought or idea
of the time ; and the poetical, in which the original
idea is almost obscured by the veil which the fancy of
the poet has woven around it. All these he holds to
be blended in various proportions in the Gospel narra-
tive— the great source of all the mythical embellish-
ments being the prepossessions of the countrymen and
followers of our Lord touching the person and works
of the expected Messiah : the next source being that
peculiar impression which was left by the personal
character, actions, and fate of Jesus, and which served
to modify the Messianic idea in the minds of the people.
21. The residuum from this system is thus stated
by one* who is far from an unfriendly critic. The
myth has eaten into the very heart of the narrative.
There remains but a scanty framework of the life of Jesus.
That He was brought up in Nazareth, was baptized by
John ; that He formed disciples, and taught in various
districts of Palestine ; that He opposed everywhere the
outwardness of pharisaism, and proclaimed the Messi-
anic kingdom ; that at last he succumbed to the hatred
and envy of the pharisaic factionf and died upon the
Cross — such, according to Strauss, is the sum total of
facts, which the ideas and aspirations of early Christen-
dom enveloped in a tissue of significant legends and
devout imaginings. Of the discourses of our Lord, a
small solid kernel, as he thinks, can be discerned with
certainty. Such, for instance, is the Sermon on the
Mount. The sayings of Jesus, according to him, were
so pregnant and forcible, had so strong a hold upon
men's minds in their condensed gnomic form, that they
were preserved in great part even in the flood of oral
tradition. Even this seems, upon second thoughts, too
much for him to admit. Wrenched from their natural
connection, dislodged from their original site, they re-
main like boulders, objects of vague wonder or super-

* Schwartz. See also Scherer, Revue des Deux Mondes.

+ Even this is a distortion of history. Caiaphas and his party were Sad-
ducees; a fact which later writers of the Tubingen school have found impos-
sible to reconcile with their theory of the origin of the Gospels.

EbsayIV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 183

stitious legends, until their true origin and meaning
are ascertained by philosophic ingenuity and research.

22. And yet Strauss professes, and may be assumed
actually to believe, that he retains the essential truths
of Christianity. The last portion of his book, which
he certainly regarded as the most important, is intended
to draw out the eternal ideas which underlie this
strange tissue of legend and myth. The supernatural
nativity of Christ, His miracles, His resurrection and
ascension, remain ideal truths — utterly separated as
they are from objective facts. Christ, indeed, in His
concrete personality, disappears from the system of
the great teacher of Ideology. No individual does or
can adequately represent, much less embody, absolute
realities. But the Church was guided by a true in-
stinct when, in the Person of Jesus, she found an ex-
pression of those realities. In Him was manifested
more perfectly than in any individual that which is
the ultimate and substantial principle of all religion,
tjie unity of God and man. It is actually startling to
find how the versatile and imaginative intellect ^ of
Strauss* can discern the blessedness and sublimity,
the encouragement and consolation of the thoughts
which the early Church derived from the orthodox
view of Christ. Standing from without, he sees far
more clearly than many who profess to believe^ the
Gospel, the internal coherence of its highest doctrines.
Only, as Strauss teaches, the true meaning of those
doctrines remained to be discovered in the light of the
philosophy of the Absolute.f That alone supplies the
key to the whole system of Christology. Instead of
an individual we have an idea. In an individual the
properties and functions which the Church attributes
to Christ contradict themselves : in the idea of the race
they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the
two natures — Gocl become man ; it is the worker of
miracles, the sinless existence ; for sin belongs to the
individual, not to the race. It is Humanity that dies,

* See the concluding Dissertation, § 145.

t Concluding Dissertation, § 151, p. 437, vol. iii. English translation.

1Q4 AIDS TO FAITH. IEssay IV.

rises, ascends into Heaven. By faith in this Christ,
that is, in his own human nature, man is justified be-
fore God.

23. Is this the last word of the system ? It seems
to go far enough. Yet Strauss had more to say. In
a later work,* he boldly clears away all remaining
prejudices. The world is not merely one with God —
an ever changing, ever progressing manifestation of the
Divine, but God has Himself no personality, no con-
scious Being. Man had taken the throne of Christ.
He seats himself ultimately in the throne of the Abso-
lute, which first attains to consciousness, to personal
existence, in humanity. f The individual is nothing —
a mere phenomenal and transitional evolution ; the abso-
lute is nothing — a mere potentiality never realized or
realizable. Empty abstraction swallows up all idea and
fact, the Divine and human, in one universal void.

24. Such is Ideology in the mind of its ablest, its
most honest and consistent exponent. The storm pro-
duced by such a work may be conceived. All the
leaders of German thought were in a tumult of excite-
ment; the first object of those, between whose systems
and that of Strauss there appeared to be a logical con-
nection, was to shake off the responsibility. Schleier-
macher's friends first rushed to the rescue, and pointed
out the absolute antagonism between the genial and
loving spirit of their chief, and the reckless audacity,
the irreverence, and bitterness of the intruder. Hege-
lians were, of course, vehement in disavowing the prin-
ciples and the consequences. Yet, as we have seen,
Strauss did but use the weapons which had been forged
for him. He scarcely went farther than De "Wette, on
the one hand, in historical scepticism, or differed from
him only in the consistency and completeness of his
application of the same critical principles. Strauss
might even claim Schleiermacher's own authority for

* The ' Dogmatik,' or ' Die Christliche Glaubenslehre,' published 1840,1841.

t " Gott is nicht Person, Er wird es in der unendlichen Reihe der men-
schlichen Subjecte." See Schwartz, p. 218 ; and Strauss, Glaubenslehre,
pp. 502-524.

Essay IY.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 185

the denial of the possibility of miracles, although, by a
glorious inconsistency, that great man accepted as a
Christian truth what he could find no place for in his
philosophical system. On the other hand, so far as his
application of the Hegelian theory was concerned,
daringly blasphemous as he may seem, he was soon
outstripped by even more reckless infidels. In fact,
other symptoms soon removed all doubt as to the ten-
dency of Hegelian forms of thought. Frederic Eichter,
a bookseller of Breslau, had already published in 1833
— two years before the appearance of Strauss's 'Life
of Jesus ' — a work in which he proclaimed a new Gos-
pel, as he styled it, that of eternal death.* His argu-
ment, in the opinion of very competent judges, was a
legitimate deduction from Hegel's theory of individ-
uality, though -the book and the author were over-
whelmed in a general outburst of indignation. Later
and more consistent professors of that school did not
hesitate to call the condemnation of Eichter, coming as
it did from Hegelians, a literary assassination. Again,
one of the most thoroughgoing adherents of Hegel, Bruno
Bauer, a writer who had made himself conspicuous by
his heady arrogance in the cause of orthodoxy, now
turning round with a sudden revulsion, poured forth a
stream of writings, in which the facts and doctrines of
Christianity were treated with a blasphemous insolence
scarcely paralleled in modern days. The writings of
Bauer and Eichter, however, were easily disavowed;
even the opponents of Hegel hesitated to make the
calm conservative philosopher responsible for such
results.

25. Two years after the appearance of Strauss's work
another application of Hegel's principles was develop-
ed, which, though far less startling and urged in a far
differeiit spirit, produced a deeper and more durable
sensation on the Continent. E. Eothe,f sub-director of

* Die Lehre von den letzten Dingen. Gieseler says that many Hegelians
blamed Eichter not for the doctrine, but for its publication, "for discovering
a secret of the school." * Kirchengeschichte der n. Z.,' p. 245.

+ Now Professor at Heidelberg. His book is entitled ' Die Anfiinge der
Christlichcn Kirche, uud ihrer Yerfassung.'

186

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

the theological college at Wittenberg, published, in
1837, his treatise on the origin and constitution of
the Christian Church. Kothe is in all respects a most
remarkable man ; in originality and independence of
thought he stands almost alone among German theolo-
gians ; his personal piety and hearty acceptance of the
living truths of religion are undoubted.* Few of our
own "later writers have gone so far — none have gone
farther, in defending, both by a priori arguments
and historical evidence, the apostolical origin of Episco-
pacy, the unity and authority of the primitive Church.
It seemed as though the conservation of Hegel had
found a perfect exponent. Yet, strange as it may
appear, the conclusion at which he arrives, following
out, as the keenest critics f admit, the principles of his
master, is that the Christian Church is but a temporary
institution destined to be absorbed by the State ; % m
which, like all true Hegelians, § he sees no mere
system of mutual defence, or institution in which the
energies of individuals may be freely developed, but
the highest product of reason, the supreme development
of humanity, — in a word, the moral world realized
and organized. The views of Eothe are altogether too
subtle, and indeed too elevated, to reach the general
mind in the form which he gave them : his State is an
ideal one ; his hope of the realization of his theory
depends upon his belief in a future personal manifesta-
tion of the Saviour ; but the necessary results of his
reasoning were clearly discerned by thinking men, and
practical inferences were readily drawn. He recog-
nizes himself with calm satisfaction what he believes
to be early and progressive symptoms of decline and
disintegration in the Church, the steady progress of

* A very strong testimony is borne to his piety by Rudolf Stier in the in-
troduction to his new edition of the ' Reden der Apostel,' 1861, p. viii. He
says of him — " Dessen innerstcs Glaubensleben ich wohl kenne." In some
points Rothe shows a strong tendency to Romanism, and speaks of Mulder's
4 SymbolhV in terms of almost unqualified eulogy.

t For instance, E. Scherer in the ' Revue des Deux Mondes,' p. 840, Feb.
1S61 ; and Schwartz, ' Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie.'

% " Der vollendete Staat schliesst die Kirche schlechthin aus." — 'Anfange,'
p. 47.

§ See his note, p. 13, where he collects Hegel's definitions of the State.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. jg^

encroachments on the part of the State ; and, in con-
nection with outward changes, an internal modification
of opinions, feelings, and principles, tending towards
a final identification of the secular and religious, the
natural and the Divine. He does not hesitate to as-
sert that the religious life itself must find its true and
satisfactory realization, not in the Church but in the
State.* Though resting on far other grounds, there is
a remarkable resemblance between his theory as well
as the arguments by which it is maintained, and that
of our own Arnold.-)* The supremacy of the State in
all matters, both of discipline and doctrine, is the
rightful and legitimate development of Christianity ;
it decides what shall be taught, and how it shall be
taught ; and in the mean time it treats, and has a right
to treat, the national Church, as no less properly an
organ of the national life than a magistracy or a legis-
lative estate.

26. The philosophy of ideology, thus consistently
carried out by writers of very different feelings and
principles, leaves man without a church, without a
Saviour, without a living soul. There remained^ how-
ever, still a sort of profession of religion, a religion of
vague, dreary abstractions, but still, such as it was, an
element in which philosophers might find some ma-
terials for the religious sentiment, while the common
herd might be guided by the retention of the old doc-
trinal forms. "That delusion was soon dissipated.
Feuerbach took up the argument where Strauss left it,

* P. 51.

t Dr. Arnold, of course, did not derive his opinions directly from Rothe,
whose work he read in 1838. In a letter written that year to Chevalier Bun-
sen, he expresses his entire agreement with Rothe in his theory as to the
identity of Church and State ; but, as might be expected, rejects as entirely
his conclusions touching the apostolical origin of episcopacy. See 'Life,'
&c, ii. p. 105. It will be remembered that the Chevalier Bunsen, with whom
Arnold says distinctly that he agrees more thoroughly than any of his friends,
was deeply imbued with Hegel's principles, and more especially with their
application to the relations between the Church and the State. There can
be little doubt that he gave the first impulse to Arnold's mind upon this sub-
ject, or at least confirmed it in the direction which it took after the reaction
from what he somewhere calls his Oxford Toryism. The numerous and pe-
culiar coincidences between Arnold and his German prototypes can other-
wise scarcely be accounted for. He learned German somewhat late in life.

-•oq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

and drew from it the inevitable conclusion, that man
himself is the only proper object for the reverence and
the worship which had hitherto been directed to the
idea of a God. Theology was thus converted to an-
thropology. Instead of loving God, men are to love
one another. Sacraments will disappear, but then the
eucharist will be found in wholesome meals ; baptism,
in the healthy use of cold baths ! Natural science will
take the place of religious, moral, and metaphysical
speculation. Atheism thus stood out in its bareness
and barrenness — yet not even then in its utter hateful-
ness. It remained for a numerous school of philo-
sophical radicals to get rid of the last vestiges of
superstition. Feuerbach recognized the virtues of un-
selfishness, courage, truth ; * he was an admirer of the
higher developments of genius, in science, literature,
and art. He speaks of humanity as a real being. A
whole host of writers soon sprang up who rejected all
such delusions with utter contempt ; they saw clearly
that they had no meaning disjoined from the religious
element, and heaped upon himself the contumelious
epithets which he had unsparingly applied to his pre-
decessors. The dogmas of socialism and communism
were preached with the wildest fanaticism ; f poets,
politicians, socialists, and natural philosophers came
forward to demand the extirpation of all faith, to de-
nounce the belief in the invisible as the root of all
human weakness and misery, to proclaim the sacred
law of egotism— the religion of the flesh ; and for a
time they seemed to have succeeded. They appealed to
man's strongest passions ; they appealed also to some
deep principles. It was felt that the religion preached

* This is too favourable a view. In his poems, which, like the ' Thalia' of
Arius, are intended to popularize his tenets, his cynicism is revolting. In
his axioms he lays down the principle— Thy first duty is to do good to thy-
self

t See Schwartz, ' Zur Geschichte dcr neuesten Theologie,' pp. 227, 240, 242.
It must be noted that Schwartz and Scherer (who takes precisely the same
view— see 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' Feb. 1861, p. 851) are ultra liberals.
Schwartz names Herwegh, Huge, Marr, Voght, &c, as leaders in this new
crusade. Gaspard Schmidt, better known by the assumed name of Stirner,
was, perhaps, the most influential writer. Gieseler, 1. a, pp. 30 and 275,
may be consulted.

Essay IT.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. jgg

by the professors of all schools tainted by rationalism
or by ideology was a farce, a delusion, a fraud ; the
materialists carried the day, took the lead in the rev-
olutionary movement of 1848, and suddenly, to their
own amazement, found themselves triumphant amidst
the ruins of Church and State.

27. A long and powerful reaction followed. Utterly
worn out, unmasked, and confounded, ideology, togeth-
er with the metaphysical speculations with which it
was connected, sank into obscurity and contempt. The
very last thing to be expected was that it should have
been transplanted into a soil of all apparently the most
uncongenial — that it should be offered to Englishmen
as a useful help in the interpretation of the Scriptures.
A very brief summary of points distinctly advanced, or
undeniably suggested, by some of the latest advocates
of the system in England will show the fundamental
identity of principles between them and the German
ideologists ; although we gladly admit that, whether
withheld by reverence, or by fear of offending men of
all shades of religious opinion, not to speak of legal
penalties and disqualifications, few among us have ven-
tured to present the most offensive insinuations ; none
have dared to apply the principles to the whole sub-
stance of the Scriptural narrative.

28. The doctrine of personal annihilation, of the
absorption of the individual consciousness in the infi-
nite Spirit — a doctrine, be it noted, which is distinctly
proclaimed among ourselves by Freethinkers, and di-
rectly based upon Pantheism, or a spurious Theism — is
not of course preached, nor is it likely to be preached,
by any one who cares to obtain or retain a hold upon
the attention of English Christians ; but it finds an echo,
a partial expression, what sounds like a preparation.
Divested of what is most repulsive in form, the princi-
ple is insinuated, the way paved for its reception. Every
attempt to get rid of the idea of individual responsibili-
ty, to exempt any considerable portion of mankind from
the universal law of retribution, is a step, and a very
decided step, towards the denial of the continuity of

19q AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

personal consciousness. A nearer approximation to the
scepticism of the Ideologists could perhaps hardly be
made than that which Ave find in the suggestion, that,
after some possible state of new probation for rudimen-
tary spirits, for germinal souls — after the completion of
the sublunary office of the Christian Church — all, both
small and great, may find a refuge in the bosom of the
universal Parent to repose, or to be quickened into
higher life.*

29. We have seen how nearly the theories of the
Church coincide. As a function of the State, destined
to be absorbed (and if such its destiny, surely the sooner
the better) in that institution, it ought, of course, to
concern itself exclusively with the ethical development
of its members. f Rothe, indeed, looked for such ab-
sorption only when the State should be thoroughly
penetrated with Christian doctrine, transformed and
glorified by Christian principles — when its ideal should
be realized under the government of its head. Taking
lower, more matter of fact and practical grounds — free,
as it would almost seem, from the religious preposses-
sions which biassed the German thinker, English writ-
ers are found to advocate the immediate completion
of the process. " Speculative doctrines" — that is, all
dogmatic teaching — "should be left to philosophical
schools. " "The ministry of the Church is to be regarded
simply as a function of the national life." _ Divested of
its special doctrines, its creeds, and articles, and all
peculiar manifestations of a divine life, the Church
could of course be little or nothing more than an instru-
ment for developing the moral character of the nation.^
We are distinctly told concerning " the doctrines of an
isolated salvation, the reward, the grace bestowed on

* See E. and R., p. 20fi ; and compare Jowett on Romans, toI. ii. p. 480.

t There is a radical difference between this theory and that of our Re-
formers, as stated by Hooker. The latter proceeded on the assumption that
the State accepts the doctrines taught by the Church. " How should the
Church remain by personal subsistence divided from the Commonweal,
when the whole Commonweal doth believe ? " " The truth is that the Church
and the Commonweal are names which import things really different; but
those things are accidents, and such accidents as may, and always should,
loviugly dwell together in one subject."— * Ecclesiastical Polity,' Book vm.

% E. and R., p. 196.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. joi

one's own labours, the undisturbed repose, the crown
of glory, in which so many have no share, the finality
of the sentence on both sides — that reflections on such
expectations as these make stubborn martyrs, or sour
professors, but not good citizens." "x" If so, these doc-
trines, which, invidiously as they are here stated, are,
rightly understood, the very life of Christianity, must
be discountenanced ; even if for a time tolerated of the
State, they must be discarded altogether, when it is
once fully awakened to the consciousness of its true
relations to the Church.

30. Still clearer, less capable of being explained
away or denied, is the agreement of the English ideolo-
gists with the fundamental principles of their German
teachers. Ideology proceeds from the a priori assump-
tion that all miraculous interventions are impossible,
since the Divine, whether conscious or unconscious,
personal or impersonal, does not and cannot, without
self-contradiction, violate its own laws. All the school
in England more or less distinctly concur in the elimi-
nation of the supernatural element from Scripture. The
least advanced represent it as a serious hindrance to
the reception of Christian truth by men of cultivated
intelligence. The German master adopted and gave a
new and keener point to all detailed objections to nar-
ratives involving that element: the same course is
pursued in numerous passages of the " Essays and
Reviews." f

With regard to myths, the special characteristic of
ideology, one writer at least cannot be open to Strauss's
charge of inconsistency. He has not merely entered
into the fields of Scriptural history through the portal
of the myth and passed out again leaving the main
facts untouched. $ The incarnation of our Lord, His
descent from David, the circumstances of His nativity,
His temptation, transfiguration, His most remarkable
miracles, including those attested by all the Evangelists,

* Here we seem to hear Rothe, p. 54.

+ E. and R., pp. 179, 180. See Archdeacon Sinclair's Charge, 18G1.

X E. and R., p. 202.

192 AIDS TO FAITn. [Essay IV.

nearly all, if not all, the grounds for an " historical

faith" are referred substantially to " an ideal origin."
As for the Old Testament, we are told that " previous
to the time of the divided kingdom, Jewish history
contains little that is thoroughly reliable." Its miracu-
lous events may be taken as parable, poetry, legend,
or allegory — that is, simply as myths. The German
saw plainly enough that, in order to find time and place
for the development of myths, the authenticity and
genuineness of the historical records must be denied.
lie scarcely went farther than a writer who speaks
coolly of " links deficient in the traditional records of
events " which are related by St. Matthew and all the
Evangelists.

A crucial test of a man's feelings towards the Per-
son of Christ Himself is undoubtedly supplied by his
reception or denial of the Gospel of St. John. The
early rationalists rejected it on the ground that it is
inconsistent with the simpler, more accurate represen-
tations of Christ in the other Gospels. The modern
neologians hold that it is the product of the higher
development of the Christian consciousness in the post-
Apostolic age. According to the school of pantheistic
rationalism, aptly and truly designated the modern
gnosticism, the representation of the Saviour in that
Gospel is too true, that is, too perfect an embodiment
of the ideal, to be historical. But of all hypotheses,
the most offensive, the least supported by any shadow
of evidence, is that which connects the origin of the
Gospel with the gnostic heresy,* and brings down its
date to the year 140. That hypothesis is noticed with-
out an expression of indignation by one writer, who in
his own name expressly asserts that there is no proof
that St. John gives his voucher as an eye and ear wit-
ness of all that is related in his Gospel. Strauss de-
manded no more than this. Here is a ttov o-tw for the
subversion of all positive evidence of historical Chris-

* Tbus Hilgenfeld. See a brief summary of opinions in Lange's Bibel-
werk, iv. p, ii<j,"uu excellent work, wbicb will meet tbe requirements of many
Hludenls.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. jq3

tianity. The mythical process has free play ; and it is
only a question of time, of discretion in meddling with
stubborn prejudices, how soon and how far the objective
facts of an external positive revelation may be rejected,
how the doctrines themselves may be remoulded, under
the supreme and ultimate authority of the natural con-
science, into accordance with the requirements of an
enlightened age.

31. The question of course arises — how is it pos-
sible that men of honour holding such opinions can re-
tain, or endure, their position as ministers and teachers
of a Church, which, liberal as it undoubtedly is in
dealing with all questions about which believers in a
positive revelation may conscientiously differ, has no
less certainly pronounced a clear and decisive sentence
upon each and all the points controverted or denied by
Ideologists ? That the difficulty is felt is sufficiently
obvious. The principal object of the only treatise in
which the leading principles of this form of neology
have been distinctly commended by a minister of the
Church of England, is to justify the conduct of him-
self and those who maintain the same views. In this
part of his undertaking he has been supplied with
weapons from the same foreign armoury. In the writ-
ings of all schools of rationalism and neology, a promi-
nent place is assigned to the vindication of absolute
liberty of sceptical speculation, not merely for students,
but for professors of theology. We need not, however,
trace the connection.* That is of little moment. The
arguments in this case have at least the merit of being
intelligible and practical. Whether the Church has at
present, and has had from the beginning, safeguards
to preserve her doctrines from corruption — whether she
has a right, and has exercised the right, to exact from
all her ministers a pledge that so long as they retain
her commission they will deliver those doctrines in

* The history of the struggle of Rationalists, more especially the Licht-
freunde, partisans or followers of Strauss, to get rid of all doctrinal tests, the
Creeds included, is given by Gieseler, who, though differing from them in
important points, sympathizes with them to some extent in that desire. See
' Kirchengeschichte d. n. Z.,' pp. 250 and 263.
9

194 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

their integrity to the people — whether the act of sub-
scription by which the ministers give such pledge
involves a moral, or a mere legal obligation — such
questions stand upon independent grounds, and may be
discussed without any reference to the sources from
which the arguments we have to consider may, or may
not, be derived.

32. In this controversy the first point must needs be
to ascertain the practice of the Apostles as recorded or
intimated in the New Testament, and in the next place
the practice of the Church in various periods of its de-
velopment ; the most important, in a general point of
view, being that critical epoch which terminated the
first struggle with heathenism. Scarcely secondary is
the position taken by our own Church, when it thor-
oughly investigated all points of principle and organi-
zation at the time of the Reformation — a position
retained without any substantial modification at the
present day.

33. With regard to the first point, the ingenuity
and disingenuousness of those who deny the propriety
of doctrinal limitations are equally conspicuous. The
subject is introduced, so to speak, casually, and dis-
posed of with little intimation of its surpassing impor-
tance. If the Apostles* enforced a rule of faith, and
made the teaching of sound doctrine an absolute and
universal condition of holding office in the Church, the
principle is of course decided, whatever difficulty may
be felt at any time about its practical application.
Now, the first impression made upon every thoughtful
reader of the New Testament is undoubtedly, that the
whole system of Christian morals, most especially as
concerns those characteristic peculiarities which dis-
tinguish the Christian from the heathen moralist, is not
merely interwoven with the external facts and positive
doctrines of Christianity, but is altogether based upon
them, and derives from them its sanctions, its power, its
life. The manifestation of the Divine life in man is a
reflexion and effiux from the manifestation of God in

* Sec, e. g., 2 Timothy i. 13, 14; ii. 2, ii. 10, 14.

Essay IY.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 195

Christ. The understanding and heart, the spiritual
and the moral nature of man, are equally under the
dominion and control of truths, which man has indeed
a natural and inherent capacity for apprehending when
set before him, but which, in the actual state of his
faculties, he is certainly unable to discover. Those
truths are given in revelation in the two-fold form of
facts and doctrines, equally positive, equally indispen-
sable to the development of the spiritual man. The
denial or perversion of either excludes a man from the
benefits of the revelation — a result which follows of
necessity from the very notion of a revelation, for why
should truth be revealed but to be accepted ? We are
not at present concerned with the question how far
such result is reconcileable with the Divine attributes,
or we might observe that the denial of what God has
revealed must needs involve some penalty in beings
responsible for the use of their faculties ; nor do we
touch the case of those to whom the revelation has not
been given ; Charity feels no need of speculations con-
cerning those whom she leaves in faith and hope to the
mercy of their Maker. We are not confining the
effects of the atonement, which may, and doubtless do,
extend far beyond the sphere of our contemplation ;
but simply indicate the limits within which its full
effects are experienced — limits undoubtedly coexten-
sive with its reception by the intellect and heart.
Christ made confession of faith in Himself, and in the
truths which He proclaimed, the condition of salva-
tion. The Apostles, guided by His Spirit, exacted a
declaration of belief in those truths as a preliminary
condition of admission to the Church, full in every
case in proportion to the capacities of their hearers
and their opportunities of knowing the truth, fullest
and most explicit in the case of those whom they ap-
pointed to the work of the ministry. If so, the con-
clusion is obvious, that the Church would cease to be a
Church if she commissioned any to teach in her own
and in her Master's name, when they are at direct issue
with herself upon points which from the beginning

Iqq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

have been held by those who denied, as veil as by
those who accepted them, to pertain to the very foun-
dations of the faith.

3tL That position, however, clear as are the prin-
ciples on which it rests, is now for the first time assailed ;
not indeed directly, but by implication. We are told
generally, that whereas the Apostles enjoin the inflic-
tion of the last penalty, that of excommunication, for
moral turpitude, they deal with speculative questions,
even those which touch fundamental doctrines, simply
by the way of controversy. The case selected is that
of the fornicator at Corinth, which is contrasted with
that of heretics who denied a corporeal resurrection.
With regard to the former there is no question. The
proceeding of St. Paul in that case is, of course, of
the highest importance as a proof of the existence and
enforcement of disciplinarian powers in the Apostles,
and in the Church, whose rulers were reproved for not
having exercised them without St. Paul's intervention.
It might be pointed out that the offence then punished
consisted most probably in the infringement of a posi-
tive precept, which, though recognized by the moral
instincts of heathendom, was first distinctly promul-
gated by the Apostolic council at Jerusalem ;* and
with reference to other controverted matters, that the
circumstances under which the sentence was pro-
nounced would lead to the conclusion that the powers
deposited in the Church, and more especially in the
Apostles as representatives of the Head of the Church,
are in their essence independent of the State. With
regard to the other point, which concerns the Apostle's
mode of dealing with heretical opinions in fundamental
matters, we wholly repudiate the inference drawn from
a partial statement of his proceeding. It is said that
St. Paul does not call for the expulsion of those among
the Christian converts who had no belief in a corporeal

* It is Hooker's opinion, in which the latest and some of the acutest crit-
ics, as Ritschl, 'Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche,' p. 129, and
Wieseler, concur, that iropueia, in Acts xv. 20, means illicit marriages. Ritschl
proves that St. Paul enforced the decree— a point of considerable impor-
tance in the controversy with the Tubingen school.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. jq^

resurrection. That may be : weakness of faith, errors
in points of faith on the part of converts, hearers, and
learners, were dealt with, tenderly, by the way of con-
troversy. The very objects of the Christian Church
would otherwise be defeated. But the question is,
whether St. Paul held that the opinions ought to be
tolerated ? Whether they could be professed or re-
tained without forfeiture of the distinctive privileges
of Christians ? What does he say of those who held
them ? What but that, if those opinions were main-
tained, their faith was vain, they were yet in their
sins ; Christ had died in vain ? If such a declaration
be not tantamount to excommunication, to cutting off
those who obstinately persisted in such errors from
Christian privileges, words have no meaning. Self-
condemned, they became aliens, relapsed into the state
of unconversion, by the very fact of their denying, not
indeed a speculative opinion, but what (as even ideolo-
gists admit, strangely inconsistent as such admission is
with the system they * advocate) St. Paul always rep-
resents as the corner stone of the Christian belief. Of
course the Apostle proceeds in the iirst instance by the
way of controversy, or, to speak more correctly, of de-
monstration. Of course his one great desire is to per-
suade, to convince, to win to the truth, those who were
weak or unsound in the faith ; to clear up obscurities,
and to remove difficulties from their way. Nor does
he fail to show the inward harmony between the ordi-
nary course of nature and the miraculous intervention
of that Power by which the laws that regulate the
course of nature were ordained. That, however, is no
more than he does in the case of offenders against the
moral law. lie exhausts all the resources of persua-
sion, expostulation, and warning ; he appeals to the
reason, the conscience, the heart, before he hints at
any measure of a judicial character, even in the case
of those who " defile the temple of the Holy Ghost."

* There is no point on which Ideologists, even those who partially adopt
the system, are more generally agreed than the necessity of explaining away
the fact of the Resurrection.

19g AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

But, as in this latter case, when all such preliminary
endeavours proved to be ineffectual, he resorted ulti-
mately to the exercise of the awful powers entrusted to
the Apostles as governors of Christ's Church, as asses-
sors with Him on the throne of judgment ; so also,
beyond all doubt, he was prepared to act, even as he
had acted in the case of Elymas at the very beginning
of his ministry, in the case of all stubborn impugners
of fundamental truths.

In fact, the expressions which he uses in reference
to those who attacked tenets which would undoubtedly
be regarded by many as purely speculative and dog-
matic, sound even harsh, and would be indefensible as
they are painful, did they not proceed from a principle
of infinite importance to the integrity of the Christian
faith. "I would that they were cut off that trouble
you;" "Let him be accursed who preaches to you an-
other Gospel;" these and similar* expressions had no
reference to evil livers, as such, but to teachers and
maintainers of evil doctrines, wTith which all corruptions
of our moral nature are connected, but which have
their origin in that higher element of our spiritual and
intellectual being, for the regulation and conscientious
use of which our responsibility is grave, even in pro-
portion to its excellence and the incomparable majesty
of the objects with which it is concerned.

We must further remark, that in order to bring the
argument, such as it is, to bear upon the question of
subscription as a condition of exercising the functions
of the Christian ministry, it should have been shown
that St. Paul admitted any man to preach publicly, in
the capacity of an appointed teacher, against the Res-
urrection, or any other doctrine which had been plainly
declared, or that he and his fellow Apostles failed to
exercise the right of deposition, when admonition and
warning were found ineffectual to secure the cause of
truth. Such is not the conclusion which we draw from
the case of Hymenseus and Alexander, whom the

* Galatians v. 12 ; 1 Timothy W. 1, 2 ; 2 Timothy iii. 8, 9 ; Titus i. 11, iii.
10. Compare 2 John 10, 11 ; 2 Peter iii. 17 ; Acts xx. 2S-30.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 199

Apostle "delivered to Satan (the same sentence as that
pronounced in the case of the Corinthian fornicator —
one which, whatever might be its effect, undoubtedly
amounts to excommunication), that they might learn
not to blaspheme ;" nor from that of Hymenseus and
Philetus, which is even more immediately to the point,
" who erred concerning the truth, saying that the res-
urrection is already past" — unless, indeed, we presume
that St. Paul allowed their word to "eat as doth a can-
ker," and to u overthrow the faith " of his converts,
without using the power " given to him by the Lord "
for the protection of the weak brethren, "for whom
Christ died."

35. The practice of the early Church is too clearly
established by a multitude of public acts to be open to
a similar course of argument. The determination of
the general body and the recognized representatives of
the Christian community to exclude all teaching con-
trary to its fundamental principles, to guard its doctrinal
deposit by strict, definite, and unmistakable declara-
tions, is the most prominent fact which, meets every
student of ecclesiastical history, which, indeed, is re-
cognized most distinctly by those who feel a rooted
antipathy to every shade of what they are pleased to
call dogmatic intolerance. A different, and not im-
plausible line of argument, is therefore adopted. The
statement is hazarded that the State, rather than the
Church, is responsible for this exclusiveness.* AVe
are told f that, together with the inauguration of mul-
tituclinism, Constantine inaugurated a principle essen-
tially at variance with it — that of doctrinal limitation ;
and wTe are informed that historians, who are cer-

* It is a singular instance of the influence which has been exercised, di-
rectly or indirectly, by the writings of one of the most subtle and ingenious
of modern controversialists, that even this argument is derived, though used
for very different purposes from Newman's theory about the Thirty-nine
Articles. ' See Romanism and Popular Protestantism,' Lecture ix. p. 278.
" Their imposition in its first origin was much more a political than an ec-
clesiastical act; it was a provision of the State rather than of the Church,
though the Church co-operated — the outward form into which our religion
was cast has depended in no slight measure on the personal opinions and
wishes of laymen and foreigners.

t E. and R., p. 1G0.

200 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

tainly all but unanimous upon the point, are -wrong in
supposing that the increasing strictness of definitions
in the Christian creed must be attributed to the rise of
successive heresies. Such assertions can, of course, only
be refuted completely by a searching inquiry into the
records of Christian antiquity ; but they may be met
by some decisive facts ; and we have no hesitation in
asserting that the part thus assigned to the first Chris-
tian emperor is diametrically in opposition to histor-
ical facts. So far from inaugurating the principle
of doctrinal limitation, Constantine from first to last
had one paramount object, and that was to get rid of
doctrinal discussions, and to bring about a compromise
between conflicting parties — in fact, to do exactly what
we are told would have been so desirable, viz., to en-
force forbearance between the great antagonistic parties,
and to insist on the maxim that neither had a right to
limit the common Christianity to the exclusion of the
other. Constantino looked upon the controversy be-
tween Catholics and Arians, as the representatives of
the secular authority are generally disposed to do, al-
together from without; and the special points under
discussion were to him matters of utter indifference.*
The course which he had pursued in the first instance
was the very wisest that could be devised; nor, con-
sidering the unparalleled importance of the crisis and
the results of his decision, do we see how Christians can
doubt that it was brought about by the great Head of
the Church. He called together from all quarters of
his empire the governors of the whole Christian com-
munity, and referred the questions under discussion to
their arbitration. The result was absolutely decisive.
The Nicene Creed was drawn up as a declaration of
what was included in that common Christianity. It
defined the true limits beyond which no teacher f could
go without infringing the fundamental principles of the
faith. With the exception of one word, that Creed con-

* See his epistle to Alexander and Alius. Euseb. V. C, ii. CO, 70.

+ It must be remembered that subscription was exacted at once of the
clergy, as being teachers, but not of the laity. Anathemas, however, were
pronounced against all who openly denied the doctrines of the Creed.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 201

tained no single statement in which, both as regarded
substance and form, all Churches had not previously
coincided. That word represented not "the harden-
ing of fluid and unsettled notions," but the existence
of one fixed universal conviction, that the centre and
life of Christianity is found in the recognition of the
absolute and perfect Godhead of its Founder and Head.
The word was chosen, not by Constantine, but by those
divines who clearly perceived the vital character of the
question at issue. They chose it because nothing short
of an exact definition would deliver Christendom from
the corruption with which it was menaced. The word
was open to cavil, and, if left unexplained, to fair ob-
jection;- but with such explanation as was at once
given and accepted, it expressed the mind of the uni-
versal Church. It must not be supposed that the object
was to express the personal opinions of the Bishops
present ; even the arguments by which they might de-
fend those opinions were matters, comparatively speak-
ing, of indifference. In selecting that word they were
actuated but by one wish — that of expressing clearly
and unmistakably the conviction of the entire body in
whose name they spoke. The most unlearned, the least
conversant with technical terms or philosophical dis-
cussions among them, were rejoiced to have that word,
feeling that they could not show their faces to their
own congregations if they returned without having
recorded such a decision as might exclude for ever the
incongruous and hostile element from the sphere of
Christian communion. Constantine did but give effect
to the universal will. They inaugurated the doctrinal
limitation ; he gave it for the time legal validity. !N"or
must it be lost sight of, that all the special pleading, all
the philosophical speculations and technical innovations
began, as indeed has always been the case, not with the

* See Athanasius, ' De Syn. Nic.,' § 20-24, and Basil, Ep. 52, with Gar-
nier's note. It is well known that all the great divines of that age were quite
satisfied with an honest acceptance of the doctrine expressed by 'Ofxoovaios,
even in the case of those who for a time were unwilling to receive that word.
Few writers of late have dealt with the question so fairly as the Benedictine
editors, or as Tillemont, ' Mcmoires H. E.,' torn. iv. p. 125.
9*

202 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

maintainors, "but with the opponents of the old Catholic
doctrine. "That there was a time when God the Word
was not; that He was alien in essential substance from
the absolute God ;" these and similar forms of what the
Church then rejected — and so long as she exists will
ever reject as blasphemy — had their origin in the cat-
echetical schools tainted most deeply by neoplatonism.
The necessity of a new, a more searching and com-
prehensive, and at the same time a more exclusive
term, was entirely owing to those metaphysical specu-
lations. The Church acknowledged the truth of the
conclusion drawn by its most clearsighted champions,
that the introduction of an intermediate Being, neither
truly -God nor truly man, was a subtle but unquestion-
able form of polytheism,* subversive of all the principles
on which the redemption of humanity depends. The ^L'
decision was, undoubtedly, exclusive. It excluded —
it ejected as a poison, a gangrene, a treasonable lie —
the doctrine which is too often regarded as a mere
verbal error, or one depending upon the inherent im-
perfection of a finite intellect ; but for that exclusiveness
the Church, and the Church alone is responsible. So
far indeed was the State from taking upon itself the
responsibility of this " doctrinal limitation," that within
a very short time its whole power was brought to bear
upon the Church, in order to compel it to reverse ifli
decision and to eliminate that one word from its creed.
During the reigns of two most able and powerful sov-
ereigns no means of fraud, intimidation, or violence
were spared to produce the result which is now repre-
sented to be so desirable — that of sweeping away the ■
limitary definition which shut out the only influential
dissentients from office and communion in the Church.
It was assuredly a providential dispensation to test the
sincerity of the Church's faith, and to demonstrate its
independence of the State. An age of terrible struggles
intervened before the final triumph ; but during that
time the principle took such root that no storms have

* This is the great, the palmary argument of Athanasius, adopted by
Basil, Gregory, and all the great divines who have written against Arianism.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION.

203

since shaken it. One point requires especial notice ; it
is often overlooked : neither Constantine nor his succes-
sors attempted, to introduce the terms of the Arian
heresy in the formularies which they recommended,*
freely as they allowed the doctrines of Arianism to he
preached; they merely wished to exclude from the
Creed the one word of doctrinal limitation ; and in that
attempt they failed. The early Church knew that it
was a matter of life or death ; and in the position where
that Church left us we stand, with a Creed definitely
stating, not explaining or discussing, but simply de-
claring, those doctrinal facts f without which our com-
mon Christianity would be a mere name.

36. That the actual position of our own Church is
definite and unmistakable is recognized both by those
^A who maintain, and not less distinctly by those who as-
sail it, as is shown by the direction of their attacks. It
is in principle precisely that of the Apostolic Church, in
fact of all portions of the Church, in the best and purest
ages. The first object of our Church is to determine
the grounds on which all its doctrine is based. That
she does by enumerating the canonical books of Holy
Writ, to which alone she appeals for authoritative con-
firmation of her teaching. Belief in the Scriptures, in
their genuineness, authenticity, and divine orgin — be-
lief in them not merely as fundamental, but as the
foundation of all fundamentals, % the sole and sufficient
warrant for the Creeds § themselves, is the first condi-
tion of communion, a condition not stated simply be-
cause it is assumed as a point about which no question
could be raised by Christians. The Bible is to our

* Hence not only Constantine, but even Constantius is spoken of in terms
of respect by stanch but candid upholders of the orthodox doctrine, as Hilary,
Ambrose, Theodoret, and Gregory Nazianzen. See the preface to G. N. Or.
iv. p. 76, ed. Ben.

T I use the expression advisedly — the doctrines of the Church are facts,
and the facts are doctrines.

X The term first used, if I mistake not, by Newman. See ' Romanism and
Popular Protestantism/ p. 287. It coincides with Chillingworth's well-known
saying, and with Hegel's "Dabei," i. e., with the Creeds, "gait in der pro-
testantischen Kirche die Bestimmung, dass die Bibel die wesentliche Grund-
lage der Lehre sey." — ' Philosophie der Religion,' p. 29.

§ Article viii.

204

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

Church* as it was to the early Church, as it was most
distinctly and emphatically to the Churches of the .Ref-
ormation, the Word of God. The three Creeds are ac-
cepted and set forth as the condensed declaration of the
articles of faith which she holds, on the ground of their
scripturality, to be true, and on that of their importance
to be fundamental. In the Thirty-nine Articles of Re-
ligion she exhibits the whole body of her theology as
contradistinguished from that of churches which had
corrupted, mutilated, or added to, the truth. The gen-
eral objects of those Articles are to repudiate the errors
of the Papal system, and to maintain what is called the
Catholic doctrine, — that is, the whole system of doc-
trines recognized by the Church of Christ as opposed to
early heresies.f So far her position is clear. With re-
gard to the acts of adhesion required of her members,
we find the same substantial identity of principle with
the early Church. As to hearers of the word, to attend-
ants upon her services, we readily admit that no formal
act of adherence beyond what is given in baptism, mid
is afterwards implied by their acceptance of her minis-
trations, ought to be required. Nor does our Church
require it.J As we believe to have been the practice
in the Apostolic age, she admits all applicants to free
participation in any ordinances from which, judging for
themselves, they expect to derive benefit ; nor does she
retain even so much of the discipline of the post-Apos-

* See Articles xvii. (the last words), xx. xxii. xxxiv. There cannot be any
reasonable doubt that the " word of God" in these Articles means the Bible.
Iu other passages it might possibly be explained away, but the expressions
"Holy Scripture" and "word of God" were most certainly synonymous in
the mind of the compilers of the Articles, as they are now in the mind of the
imposers of subscription. The results of denying that the word of God is
co-extensive with Holy Scripture are drawn out clearly enough in E. and R.,
pp. 176, 177.

t See Dr. Arnold's ' Life and Correspondence,' ii. p. 136. The passage is
quoted further on. Compare Waterland, vol. ii. p. 302.

% This does not touch the case of the Universities. Of course, any colle-
giate or corporate institution has the right to impose its own conditions for
admission to its privileges or benefices. There is great force in the argu-
ments of the pamphlet, written, I believe, by Mr. Maurice, 'Subscription no
Bondage,' 1835 — " In all schools and universities there is a contract expressed
or implied between the teacher and the learner, as to the principles on which
the one agrees to teach and the other to learn — and to state the terms of this
contract is at once the most honest method, and the most serviceable to edu-
cation."

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 205

tolic Church as might bo held desirable in order to pro-
tect the most solemn rites from profanation. Even that
risk is incurred in preference to the possible exclusion
of timid and scrupulous believers. Our Church, to use
a somewhat pedantic but not inexpressive term, is mul-
titudinous, in the sense that it does not inquire minutely
and jealously into the qualifications and opinions of its
members, but opens wide its gates day and night, and
offers freely to all the leaves that were given for the
healing of the nations. But that is quite a different
question from the terms of admission to the functions
of the ministry.- Our Church has learned from St.
Paul, from his fellow Apostles, and from his Master,
that an imperfect knowledge, much more denial of the
truth when it extends to fundamental principles, when
it touches the " Divine personalities," and the authority
of God's word, is an insuperable disqualification for the
ministerial office.

37. It is disingenuous to represent this difference be-
tween a lay and clerical member of the Church as im-
plying that one is free to inquire, the other bound to
profess what, be it true or be it false, may not be true
to him. The layman is simply treated, so far and so
long as he chooses to be so treated, as one whose opin-
ions are in process of formation ; whereas the other, by
the mere fact of his assuming the functions of a teacher,
declares that upon all essential points his mind is al-
ready made up. A school of theology may, within cer-
tain limits, be a fair arena for speculative conflicts ; but
the chair of the professor, and a fortiori the pulpit of
the minister, should be occupied by one who is in pos-
session of the truth. It has been stated, that whenever
laymen are put in positions where their influence may

* Thus Watcrland — " Subscription is not a term of lay communion, but of
ministerial conformity, on acceptance of trusts and privileges," vol. ii. p. 3G2.
Again, " This writer cannot distinguish between ejecting and not admitting,
nor between Church-communion and Church-trusts. I said not a word about
ejecting any man out of communion," ib. p. 392. Bishop Bull takes precisely
the same view, ' Vindication of the Church of England,' vol. ii. p. 211, ed.
Burton. So also does Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 'Ductor dubitantium,' iii. c. 4.
In accordance with this principle, Athanasius admitted the Scmi-Arians to
communion, although they would not accept the term Ilomousion; but he
would not allow them to hold office in the Church.

206

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

affect the religions principles of members of the Church,
the same guarantees are exacted as in the case of min-
isters. Though incorrect in point of fact, that state-
ment bears witness to the reasonableness of the condi-
tion, that professed teachers of the Church's doctrines
ought, in some form or other, to give an assurance that
they know what these doctrines are, and that they re-
ceive them and intend to teach them without any essen-
tial modification. There are several conceivable ways
in which the Church may satisfy herself upon this point;
but surely the easiest and most natural — the least open
to the charge of unfairness — is to state clearly, broadly,
and completely, the principles, and doctrines, which she
holds to be fundamental, and to require of those who
are candidates for the most important of all offices, a
declaration deliberately made and attested by the sim-
ple act of subscription, that they are one in mind and
in convictions with herself. The Church can do no less
than demand such a pledge, that at the time when a
man accepts the office, he allows,*"' that is, he honestly
and unreservedly approves and assents to her code of
faith.

3S. This, it is said, is equivalent to a promise that
a man will believe, and that is a promise which it is
not in his power to fulfil. But so far as regards belief,
subscription is not a promise, but a declaration.! What-
ever promise is implied concerns not our convictions,
but our acts. "We pledge ourselves simply to this,
that, so long as we hold an office of trust, we will not

* It is strange that any scholar should raise a question as to the meaning
of this word. It occurs frequently in our early formularies, and always in the
sense of approving and accepting. See also Luke xi. 48 ; 1 Thess. ii. 4. As
to its meaning in Subscription, Jeremy Taylor writes thus (1. c.) :— "Lubens
et ex animo subscripsi, that's our form in the Church of England. Consen-
tiens subscripsi : so it was in the ancient Church, as St. Austin reports. I
consent to the thing, my mind goes with it."

t Thus Jeremy Taylor, 1. c, c. xxiii. "Ecclesiastical subscription only
gives witness of our present consent, but according to its design and purpose
for the future it binds us only to the conservation of peace and unity." His
view of the act of subscription is of great importance. " It implies that he
who subscribes does actually approve the articles overwritten— does, at the
time, believe them to be such as it is said they are ; true, if they only say
they are true ; useful, if they pretend to usefulness ; necessary, if it is affirmed
they are necessary. For if the subscriber believe not this, he by hypocrisy
serves the ends of public peace, and his own preferment."

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUESCEIPTION. OQ7

contravene the purposes for which it was instituted.
The objects of our faith are, indeed, immutable truths ;
but, knowing the changeableness of the subjective
faculties which apprehend them, and the manifold dis-
turbances to which spiritual development is liable, we
make no promise that we will retain those convictions ;
although, from the very nature of convictions touching
the highest interests of our being, we entertain a hope,
a trust, a something in all honest men approaching to,
and in single-hearted believers identified with, a con-
fident assurance that we shall retain them to the end.
The promise, however, as to acts is binding, on the
plainest grounds of moral obligation, and that without
any reference to the possible contingency of legal pen-
alties and disqualifications in case of its violation.

39. This point is of primary importance. It concerns
our conscience more nearly than any considerations
bearing upon our ministerial position. It has been
lately asserted, as I believe for the first time, that the
moral obligation of the act of subscription is commen-
surate and identical with the legal obligation. Now
the effect of this doctrine, were it generally adopted,
Avould be the practical annihilation of all obligation,
in the great majority of cases where any question could
arise. It is but too obvious that a man may, if not
directly, yet by insinuation and unmistakable inference,
attack even the fundamental doctrines of the Church
without incurring the danger of legal conviction. In
fact, so far as the mere legal obligation is concerned,
there could be no object whatever in requiring sub-
scription. That act does not render a man liable to
legal consequences in a higher or different degree than
would the acceptance of an office to which certain con-
ditions are attached by the legislature. It is perfectly
competent to the supreme authority to inflict depriva-
tion for any infringement of those conditions, without
reference to the previous concurrence of ministers in
the definition of their duties. The act of subscription
would be superfluous, if it did not superadd to the legal
a perfectly distinct and incomparably higher obligation,

2Qg AIDS TO FAITn. [Essat IV.

— even one which binds the conscience of an honest
man.*

40. The existence of the moral obligation does not.
however, determine its exact nature and extent. The
question still remains, how far the act of subscription
implies conformity between a man's inmost convictions
and the doctrinal formularies of the Church.f That
the conformity does not necessarily extend to an abso-
lute and entire acceptation of any human formularies,
as exhaustive or perfect representations of Divine truth,
may readily be conceded. Such a demand would, in
fact, be tantamount to an assumption of verbal and
plenary inspiration, which the compilers of the docu-
ments and the imposers of subscription would be the
first to disclaim. The conformity must, however, amount
to as much as this. Taking the articles of religion in
their natural and obvious meaning^ as upon the whole
with singular unanimity, and in the most essential points
with absolute unanimity, they have been understood
and interpreted by our great divines, the subscriber
recognizes in them a faithful exhibition of Christian
doctrine, the rule of his public teaching, the authorita-
tive expression of the faith once delivered to the saints.
On two points especially, an explicit and unhesitating
act of adhesion is demanded — the canon of Holy Scrip-
ture, and the Creeds which present its fundamental
doctrines in a concentrated form.§ Short of this con-

* See the touching and unanswerable statement of Mr. Whiston, quoted by
Waterland, vol. ii. p. 400.

t This is the declaration of the four Oxford Tutors in 1S41 :— " We readily
admit the necessity of allowing that liberty in interpreting the formularies
of our Church which has been advocated by many of our most learned bishops
and eminent divines ; but this tract puts forth new and startling views as to
the extent to which that liberty mav be carried. For if we are right in our
apprehension of the author's meaning, we are at a loss to see what security
would remain, were his principles generally recognized, that the most plainly
erroneous doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome might not be in-
culcated in the lecture-rooms of the university and from the pulpits of our
c 1 1 1 3 rcli G S . ' *

X See Dr. Waterland on * Arian Subscription,' vol. ii. p. SS5. Bishops Bull,
vol. ii. p. 211, and J. Taylor, quoted above.

§ To these should be added the doctrine of the Sacraments. The statute
of Elizabeth 13, which requires subscription to all the Articles, specifies in
the first place such only as concern the confession of the Christian faith and
the doctrine of the Holy Sacraments. See Collier, ' Ecclesiastical History,
vol. vi. pp. 485 and 480.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 209

formity, it is certain that a minister cannot sympathize
with the spirit, or give effect to the purposes, of the
Church. Common sense, in this case fully in accord
with the highest reason, is a sufficient guide to the most
cautious and scrupulous inquirer. Nor can I forbear
from quoting the words of one whom no man will sus-
pect of any tendency to dogmatic intolerance, any dis-
regard of even exaggerated sensitiveness. In a letter
to one who had felt much perplexity about subscription,
after alluding to difficulties formerly experienced by
himself, Dr. Arnold* writes thus : — " The real honesty
of subscription appears to me to consist in a sympathy
with the system to which you subscribe, in a preference
of it, not negatively merely as better than others, but
positively, as in itself good and true in its most charac-
teristic points. Now, the most characteristic points of
the English Church are two ; that it maintains what is
called the Catholic Faith as opposed to the early heresies,
and is also decidedly a Reformed Church as opposed
to the priestly and Papal system." Such must have
been the feelings of the Oxford tutorf who some twenty
years since bore this testimony to our Church, witli
especial reference to its safeguard of subscription — " I
know not where free scope may be found for the feel-
ings of awe, mystery, tenderness, and devotedness,
when they struggle for utterance in the breast of the
spiritual man, more freely than in our own communion :
where our sons are taught, without adding thereto, or
diminishing might from it, the great mystery of godli-
ness : God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,
seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on
in the world, received up into glory." No one holding
those principles could feel any difficulty in subscription.
Such a man is satisfied, not because he is safe from
legal consequences, but because he feels himself in
harmony with the spirit of his Church, because he
knows that he is offering an honest act of fealty, and is
willing, without subterfuge or equivocation, to carry

* 'Life and Correspondence,' vol. ii. p. 177.

+ ' Letter to Rev. T. T. Churton by Rev. H. B. Wilson,' 1841.

210 A1DS T0 FAITH. [Essay IV.

out her intentions to the best of his ability. Should
it, indeed, unhappily be the case, that in after years his
mind should be so affected as to reject not merely a
word here and there, the meaning or application of ex-
pressions about which the most learned and candid
writers have differed, or even positive determinations
upon questions of subordinate importance, but the great
truths, the objective facts, the fundamental doctrines
set forth plainly and unmistakably in those formularies,
then surely the moral obligation is positive. It leaves
but one alternative. He cannot do the work which he
has undertaken, cannot preach the doctrines, cannot
proclaim the facts which are the very foundation of the
Church : how can he retain the trust ? If people did
not understand this to be our feeling as ministers, they
would speedily seek for some other guarantee. If it
were generally believed that, when called upon to clear
himself from " odious imputations," a minister might
put a stop to all further inquiry by simply renewing
his subscription, with a clear understanding that there-
by he means no more than that he recognizes a legal
obligation, retaining the right of explaining away, or
even denying privately and publicly, the very state-
ments to which he puts his hand, the whole body of the
laity would scout the very notion of subscription, would
reject it as illusory, as a mere sham.* The only light
in which they look upon subscription is, that it is a
means of ascertaining what truths a man holds, and
what he holds himself bound to teach, — not surely upon
what terms he may consider himself justified in retain-
ing office or emoluments in the Church. They will be

* These words express with equal force and accuracy the general feelings
of the laity. " If the Church of England really possesses that element of
vitality which her sons proudly believe to be inherent in her, she will never
flinch "from vindicating the integrity of her Articles and the uniformity of her
belief; but if she should be ill-advised enough to allow her tests to be broken
down and rendered void by strained and licentious expositions, if she place
her only hope of safety and unity in allowing her sons to profess one creed
and believe another, let her prepare for that well-merited downfall to which
deceit and double dealing never fail to conduct." A tract bearing the title,
'The Articles Construed by Themselves,' Oxford, 1841, attributed, as I be-
lieve, to R. Lowe, Esq., formerly of Magdalen College, now Vice-President of
the Committee of Council on Education.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION 211

prepared to allow time for consideration to any man
harassed by perplexing doubts : no man would be re-
garded with more entire sympathy and tenderness than
one whose spirit might be overwrought in its struggles
with storms which haunt the higher regions of intel-
lectual life : but so long as he works, prays, preaches,
administers the sacraments of the Church, or discharges
the kindred and no less responsible duty of forming
the character of youth under the sanction of the minis-
terial office, laymen presume, and would be scandalized
to hear it doubted, that he holds substantially the con-
victions which he professed, when formally, publicly,
deliberately, at a most critical moment of his life, he
signed his name in token of unfeigned assent to the
Articles of his Church.

41. One reason assigned for the removal of all
doctrinal tests may require special consideration.*
It is stated that there is a wide-spread and increasing
alienation from the Church ; that the minds of thought-
ful men reject the views of Christian doctrine common-
ly advanced in our churches and chapels — that is, in
other words, by the teachers of nearly all religious
denominations : and it is distinctly implied, that this
alienation is to be attributed to the growing sense of
incompatibility between the tenets generally regarded
as essential to Christianity, and the conclusions of
reason from the progress of science, and more espe-
cially " from the advance of general knowledge con-
cerning the inhabitancy of the world. We might
question the fact of an increasing alienation, we
might argue that, compared with the state of the
church in the last century, her existing condition is one
of wider and far more effectual influence ; that every
test upon which reliance can be placed indicates a
strengthening of religious convictions ; that the num-
ber of communicants is multiplied at least tenfold;
that the very face of the country is changed by the

* Mr. Wilson can hardly hope to disprove his own forcible statement.
" Schemes of comprehension of necessity defeat their own design : if weak
brethren are included on the one hand, weak brethren are excluded on the
other."— Letter to Rev. T. T. Churton.

222 AIDS T0 FAITH [Essay IV.

multitude of churches built, enlarged, or restored;
and that, for the first time since the Keformation, our
Church has grappled with the real difficulties of her
position, sends forth missionaries to all quarters of the
earth, and has organized the colonial episcopate. We
might point to many of the greatest names in art,
science, literature, and politics, which within the same
period have recognized in our Church a true manifesta-
tion of the Divine life. Nor, again, cariit be denied that
the alleged facts of the census of 1851, in themselves
most questionable, have been most unfairly applied.
Certainly, of all inferences, the least reasonable is, that
the absence of some 45 per cent, of the population
from public service was in any way attributable to
conscientious objections to the doctrine taught in our
churches, or to a conviction that heathenism, after all,
is no very lamentable condition of two-thirds of the
human race. "We should have thought that ignorance,
vice, and indifference, on the one hand, on the other,
the want of sufficient and proper accommodation, were
generally recognized as the main causes of what cer-
tainly was a most painful result of an inquiry into the
actual number of worshippers. Upon these points we
need not dilate ; but this we maintain without hesita-
tion,—the alienation, to whatever extent it may really
exist, is not owing to the doctrines set forth in the
Creeds of our Church, and embodied in her liturgical
formularies. The surest way of emptying any church
or chapel is to substitute for earnest preaching of those
very doctrines which are specially selected for attack
or suspicion, a vague, cold, rationalistic system of so-
called Christian ethics.* Let the people suspect that
their ethical development is the single object of all
the instrumentality of the Church, they would simply
throw it off as cumbrous and superfluous ; and they
would be right. The experiment has been tried here
and abroad. It has had one unvarying result. In

* Not but that our strictest dogmatical writers are most careful to assign
its right place to morality. Waterland says, with reference to this very
question of subscription, " Every heresy in morality is? of more pernicious
consequence than heresies in point of positive religion."

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION.

213

Germany, where for a time it had free play, it alien-
ated the great body of the nation from the communion
of the Church. In England sufficient proof has been
given that a " prudential system of ethics "not only
fails "as a restraining force upon society," but that,
disjoined from the vital doctrines of Christianity, it
leads rapidly to the decay, and ends in the dissolution,
of any denomination by which it is adopted. This is
the case even in independent communities where the
principal parts of the service are adjusted by the min-
ister and his congregation — where prayer and psalm-
ody may be kept in harmony with preaching, however
rationalistic. But in a church where the doctrines
taught in the Creeds find an expression in every prayer,
the contradiction between the sermon of a rationalist
and the words which he is constrained to utter in his
ministerial functions, will always be, and ought always
to be, fatal to his influence. If the congregation have
good reason to suspect that, in reciting the Creeds, the
minister looks upon himself as subjected to the hard
bondage of uttering what he inwardly disavows, or re-
gards as an " unhappy " form ; that in the petitions of
the Litany he uses expressions touching the " Divine
personalities " which are to him little more than meta-
physical abstractions, or speculative conclusions of the
schools ; if they believe that, from the opening prayer
to the final blessing, there has been a constant struggle,
a series of inward protests, Jesuitical reservations or
interpretations, going on within the mind of the
reader; whatever else may be the effect upon their
hearts, one effect is sure, their moral sense will be
shocked, they will recoil in indignation from such
hypocrisy. Even supposing he should have commu-
nicated to them his own unhappy doubts and repug-
nances, they wTill feel that it is a bad and evil thing for
them to share in acts of such glaring and flagrant in-
consistency. They will soon desert the church alto-
gether, or testify their contempt for the ordinances or
the minister, by their demeanour when he preaches, or
by their expressive silence in the acts of common wor-

214 AIDS T0 FAITH. [E6SAYIV.

ship. One thing must be looked in the face. The
abolition of subscription to those doctrines which find
expression in our Liturgy* would be utterly futile
unless that Liturgy itself were entirely reconstructed.
No partial reform, not the widest reform which has
ever been suggested, or would be tolerated by the most
indifferent and sceptical congregation in this land^
would free from intellectual bondage the conscience of
those who are now calling for the relaxation of sub-
scription. It is not a mere phrase here and there
which would change their position; it is the very
spirit of Christianity, full of the recognition of its
most special and characteristic truths, which drives the
minister to the alternative of speaking as a believer in
each and all essential doctrines, or of standing self-con-
victed and self-condemned in the presence of Him
whom he mocks by the utterance of prayers which he
inwardly disavows.

What we desire is this, — to bring into the fold of
Christ's Church all who are estranged from its com-
munion; but it must be a complete and an honest
work. Our commission is to give and teach the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The
Christian faith is a perfect and indissoluble whole. We
cannot consent to mutilate or disfigure it, We cannot
entrust it to the care of any ministers who are not pre-
pared to give full and satisfactory pledges that they
accept it as a whole. We have no fear of any conse-
quences, so long as men can rely upon the trustworthiness
of the agents through whom the Church acts. The
one thing of which all need to be assured is, that their
ministers hold fast the form of sound words ; the truth
once delivered to the saints; the canon of Holy
Scriptures, which are able to make wise unto salvation ;
the knowledge of the Father and the Son, which is
eternal life ; ' in a word, faith in the Incarnation and
the Atonement, without any subtlety of interpretation^
in the plain sense accepted by all the Churches of
Christendom. Upon subordinate, or purely specula-

* This was distinctly felt by the leaders in the Arian controversy in the
last centnrv. See Dr. Watcrlaud's tract on ' Arian Subscription,' vol. n.

Essay IV.] IDEOLOGY AND SUBSCRIPTION. 215

tive questions, considerable latitude of interpretation
is conceded — the wider and freer the better for the
cause of truth. But this liberty is conceded because
men doubt not that they who use it accept those
fundamental truths. Abuse of the concession — attempts
to strain the liberty so as to unsettle the doctrines
nearest to the hearts of Christians, wTould speedily
bring about results the very opposite to those contem-
plated by many who struggle against existing limita-
tions. It must be borne in mind, that if changes were
made, they would probably be made in a different
direction from that pointed out by latitudinarians.
To increase, not to diminish our securities, — to exclude,
not to admit incongruous and adverse elements — such
would be the great object of all earnest Christian men ;
of those who would undoubtedly take the lead should
the national ark be unloosed from its moorings, should
the storms of angry and unscrupulous controversy
once more thoroughly rouse the national spirit. ~We
are far from wishing for any increase of stringency.
So far as regards the terms of admission to the minis-
try, we are satisfied with existing safeguards, provided
always that men do not palter with us in a double
meaning, that we are safe from special pleading and
equivocation, that declarations are made in the sense
in which those who hear them are well known to
receive them, — that, in a word, we have precisely the
same kind of confidence which is felt by all honourable
men who are parties to compacts involving the recog-
nition of weighty duties distinctly set forth and under-
stood.

"We need not fear the issue of the controversy. It
may justify watchfulness, but not alarm. It is true
that some questions have been raised, which are not
likely to be finally settled in this generation. The
elements which have thrown the mind of Europe into
a state of disturbance, have undoubtedly penetrated
very deeply into England. Oar young men will have
to pass through a fiery trial. It is not an age for rest,
for unreasoning acquiescence in past traditions. The

21(J AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IV.

progress of religious knowledge will in future be more
beset by speculative and intellectual difficulties than
lias been the case in former years. Candidates for the
ministry must not be contented with meagre intro-
ductions to Holy Scripture, or a superficial analysis of
its contents. It will be their duty — a duty more
strongly felt than ever — to ascertain the grounds on
which the Canon of Scripture has been received by
the Church, and the proofs of the genuineness and
authenticity of its contents ; they will test more
closely and: severely the evidences of all the doctrinal
statements, to which after careful examination they
will have to declare their assent. But in all this work
they have abundant help. The close, microscopic
examination of the Book of Life is daily bringing its
secret beauties into clearer light. The progress of
historical research opens new fields of discovery in
which the Scriptural exegetist finds valuable materials.
The deep spiritual meaning of many an obscure pas-
sage or neglected fact is discerned more distinctly by
those who, candidly but warily, scrutinize the ob-
jections of antagonists to the faith. The current of
religious thought flows in broader and deeper channels
than heretofore, and the vessels of those who sail under
the sure guidance of the Spirit of God will reach the
haven freighted with treasures of great price. An-
tagonisms may indeed become stronger, secessions
perhaps be more frequent ; superstition and infidelity
may claim each its share in the spoil of troubled and
faithless spirits ; but the revelation of Christ will not
lose its hold upon the heart of the humble, nor upon
the intellect of the truthful inquirer. Our branch of
the Church will not be disinherited of its privileges or
stripped of its safeguards ; it will eject rationalism in
every form, more especially in the most un-English
and Jesuitical of all forms, that of Ideology. It will
continue to do its own proper work, preparing its
members not for a dreamy state of repose in the
bosom of the universal Parent, but for a full, perfect,
and conscious life in the presence of the living God.

ESSAY Y.

THE MOSAIC RE CO ED OF CREATION

10

CONTENTS OF ESSAY V.

1. Introduction : The Creator, Elo-

him— Jehovah.

2. The Elohistic and Jehovistic theory,

as stated by Bleek— Theories of As-
true, Eichhorn, Ilgen, De Wette,
Von Bohlen, Gramberg, Ewald,
Hiipfeldt, and Knobel.

3. Want of unity— The most celebrated

critics convict each other of false
criticism— Their conclusions value-
less.

4. "Elohim" and "Jehovah" not sy-

nonymous.

5. TnE Creation— Unity of the first

two chapters of Genesis: they do
not contain two distinct accounts of
the creation.

6. Assertion that the Mosaic cosmogony

is contradicted by the discoveries and
progress of science, and that, there-
fore, Moses could not have been in-
spired.

7. First supposed difficulty, the age of

the world.

8. The words of Moses, though compre-

hensive as to time, are precise as to
the fact of creation.

9. Meaning of the phrase " The heavens

and the earth."

10. Gen. i. 2. The state of the earth be-

fore the sis days' work.

11. Verse 3 compared with verses 14-19

—Light and the earth before the
sun— Theory of La Place.

12. Meaning of the word " day."

13. The six days not the six Geological

periods.

14. Supposed immobility of the earth.

15. The Mosaic firmament an expanse, not

a solid vault.

16. Creation of one human pair— State-

ment in 'Essays and Purviews1 that
the original formation of only one
pair of human beings is taught only
in the 2nd chapter, and not in the
1st.

17. Conclusion.

THE MOSAIC RECORD OE CREATION.

1. Almost all ancient nations have traditions re-
specting the origin of the universe. These traditions
differ in detail and representation according to the
genius of the people by whom they have been pre-
served, but they retain a family likeness, and certain
points of contact with each other and the Mosaic cos-
mogony, with which some exhibit a striking resem-
blance. Thus the Etruscans relate that God created
the world in six thousand years. In the first thousand
He created the heaven and the earth ; in the second
the firmament; in the third the sea and the other
waters of the earth ; in the fourth sun, moon, and stars ;
in the fifth the animals belonging to air, water, and
land ; in the sixth man alone.* The Persian tradition
also recognizes the six periods of creation, assigning to
the first the heavens ; to the second the waters ; to the
third the earth ; to the fourth trees and plants ; to the
fifth animals ; to the sixth man.f Others mention the
darkness, the chaotic mass of waters, the Spirit of God ;
so that even in the judgment of modern critics, there
must have been " a primitive, cosmogonical myth, uni-
versally pervading antiquity." % How and when that
universal myth arose, modern criticism does not say ;
and yet it is a striking fact that there should be such a
tradition, and that amidst the variety of modifications the
original identity should still be perceptible. Christian
apologists have found in the resemblances a presump-
tion of its being derived from the original revelation,
and in the consent of the various human families, com-

* Suidas in yoc. Tvppnvla. ..

t Zend Avesta, Kleuker. p. 19 ; Anquetil du Perron, torn. n. 34S ; But-
nouf, Yacna, torn. i. p. 2'J7.
% Knobel on Genesis, p. 0.

220 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Ebsay V.

bined with the manifest superiority and historic char-
acter of the account in Genesis, a proof of the Divine
origin of the Mosaic Record, and of the unity of the
human race* Modern theology, on the contrary,
teaches that the Mosaic cosmogony is only the Hebrew
form of the original myth, bearing the palm indeed on
account " of its simplicity, dignity, and sublimity," but
still unhistoric in its relation, and inconsistent with the
results of modern criticism and science.

To discuss all the details of criticism would require
volumes. But one alleged result, often stated in an off-
hand, popular way, asserted with unhesitating confi-
dence, and repeated as absolutely certain, requires
notice. It is said that in the Book of Genesis there
are some portions in which God is spoken of exclusive-
ly as Elohim — in others exclusively as Jehovah [the
Lord in the Authorized Version]. This exclusive use
of the one Divine name in some portions, and of the
other in other portions, it is said, characterizes two dif-
ferent authors, living at different times, and conse-
quently Genesis is composed of two different docu-
ments, the one Elohistic, the other Jehovistic, which
moreover differ in statement, and consequently that
this book was not written by Moses, and is neither in-
spired nor trustworthy. Now, not to notice the defec-
tiveness of this statement as to the names of God,
who in Genesis is also called El, El Elyon, Most High
God; El Shaddai, God Almighty; Adonai, Lord; nor
the fact that in other books, as "Jonah and the Psalms, the
same exclusiveness is found ; let us look at this state-
ment as a supposed result of criticism. It is generally
urged as if on this point critics were all of one mind,
agreed in the portions which are Elohistic or Jehovistic
—unanimous as to the characteristic differences of style
in the separate portions, in fact as if the theory came
with the authority of universal consent. _ Were this
the case, it would necessarily carry with^ it great
weight. For, though the conclusions of criticism dif-

* Grotius ' de Veritate,' who has given an ample collection of ancient tes-
timonies, lib. i. § xvi. Faber, ' Iloras Mosaicse, vol. i. pp. 17-40.

Essay Y.] THE MOSAIC EECOIiD OF CEEATIOJST. 221

fer from the demonstrations of pure science and the in-
ferences of induction, yet, when unanimously adopted
by those competent to judge, they deservedly influence
the minds of all reasonable persons. But this is not
the case in the present theory. The popular statement
given above does not represent the true state of the
case. The fact is, that there is here the greatest vari-
ety of opinion, and the modifications of the above ap-
parently simple theory are so widely divergent, as
either to shake the value of the criticism, or throw a
dark shade of doubt on the competence of the critics.
In the first place, there is a difference as to the extent
to which the theory is to be applied. Some confine it
to the Book of Genesis ; others include Exodus to
chapter vi. ; others, as Knobel, Bleek, and Ewald, as-
sert that the Jehovistic and Elohistic differences can be
recognized through the whole Pentateuch to the end of
Joshua. Some, as J. D. Michaelis, Jahn, Vater, Hart-
mann, regard Genesis as a loose and unsystematic
stringing together of disjointed fragments. 2. But
passing these by, let us look at the state of the Elohistic
and Jehovistic theory, as stated by Bleek in his Intro-
duction.

i. In the year 1753, Astruc, a French physician,
taught that the Book of Genesis is made up of twelve
memoirs or documents, of which the two principal are
the Elohistic and the Jehovistic. From these Moses
composed the book, which he wrote in twelve columns.
Copyists mixed these together, and hence the present
form of Genesis.

ii. Eichhorn asserted that the present Book of Gen-
esis is based upon two pre-Mosaic documents, distin-
guished by Elohim and Jehovah, and that the author,
in relating any event, selected that document in which
the fullest account was contained. Sometimes the
accounts are mixed together. Some other documents
were consulted.

iii. Ilgen supposes seventeen documents, but only
three authors, one Jehovist, two Elohists, and is so
acute in his scent as sometimes to divide even single
verses between the three, and crive to each his own.

,, Wllv> to.

222 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

iv. De "Wette's theory, in the first edition of his In-
troduction, is, that a continuous Elohistic document
pervades and forms the basis of the whole book, and
extends to Exod. vi. In this the author inserted what
he found in one, or, probably, in several Jehovistic
documents.

v. Yon Bohlen believes in the same Elohistic basis,
but denies the existence of Jehovistic documents. The
author of the book in its present state is the Jehovist,
so that only two persons are concerned.

vi. Gramberg makes three authors — the Elohist, the
Jehovist, and the compiler, who does not scruple some-
times to substitute one Divine name for the other.

vii. Ewald exhibits a variety of opinions : first, he
began by holding the unity of Genesis, and proving it
against both the document and the fragment hypothesis.
Iiis arguments have not yet been refuted, either by
himself or others. Secondly, about ten years after-
wards he taught that the basis of the Book of Genesis
is an ancient writing, of which considerable remains
are found in the whole Pentateuch, and which is dis-
tinguished by peculiarity of language, especially by the
use of Elohim up to Exod. vi. 2. This author had in-
corporated into his book more ancient documents, as
the Decalogue and Exod. xxi -xxiii. At a subsequent
period arose another work on the ancient history, which
ascribed the use of Jehovah to patriarchal times. From
this later work portions were inserted into the former
by the author of the present Book of Genesis, so that
here there are at the least four writers concerned.
Thirdly, Ewald extended and modified this theory by
supposing more than two treatments of the ancient his-
tory forming the contents of the Pentateuch, and the
Book of Joshua. He ascribes Genesis in its present
form to that writer, whom in his first edition he calls
the fourth narrator, and in his second edition the fifth
narrator of the primitive histories, who lived in the
time of Jotham. This work had several predecessors ;
according to the first edition, three ; according to the
second, six. Three of these are Elohistic.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 223

viii. Iiiipfeldt takes as the basis of our Genesis
three independent historic works ; two Elohistic, one
Jehovistic, and makes in addition a compiler.

ix. Knobel believes in two documents : first, the
Elohistic, forming the basis of the Pentateuch and of
Joshua ; second, the Jehovistic, which again has two
previous sources. There are, besides, free Jehovistic
developments, in which the compiler sometimes fol-
lowed hints in the two documents, sometimes popular
tradition, and sometimes his own conceptions.

3. This enumeration is far from exhausting the va-
rieties, but is sufficient to show the want of unity. The
reader will perceive that some assert one Elohistic doc-
ument— others, two — others, three. In like manner
some make one Jehovist ; some more. Some make the
Jehovist identical with the compiler ; others make him
a different person. Some make two, others three, others
four, Ewald seven documents by different authors the
materials of Genesis. 'Now every one can understand
that there is a great difference whether the Elohistic
and Jehovistic portions be assigned to one or be divided
amongst two, three, or more persons. He who says
that there is only one Elohist must believe that in the
whole Elohistic portion there is unity of style, tone, spirit,
language. If there be two Elohists, then the former
is mistaken as to the unity, and there must be two
diversities of style; but if there be three Elohists,
then both first and second critics are mistaken, and
there must be three different styles. The portions
assigned to each must also be smaller. Let the three
Elohists be A, B, C. The first critic says that the
whole belongs to A. The second critic says, No ; part
belongs to B. The third critic says part belongs to A,
part to B, and part to C. And thus the most cele-
brated critics convict each other of false criticism.
Hiipfeldt condemns Knobel; Ewald condemns Iliip-
feldt and Knobel ; Knobel condemns Ewald and Iliip-
feldt. If Knobel's criticism is correct, Hupfeldt's is
worthless. If Ewald be right, the others must be de-
ficient in critical acumen. They may all be wrong, but
only one of the three can be right.

224 AIDS T0 FAITH. [EssattV.*

But take into account all the other differences enu-
merated above, one supposing that the documents are
pre-Mosaic, another that they were written in the times
of Joshua or the Judges, another in the time of David,
another some centuries later ; and how uncertain must
the principles of their criticism appear, — how valueless
their conclusions ! "With such facts can any sane per-
son talk of the results of modern criticism as regards
the Book of Genesis ? or be willing to give up the be-
lief of centuries for such criticism as this?

It is self-evident that criticism leading to such in-
consistent conclusions must be in a high degree imagi-
native : a little examination shows that it is also unrea-
sonably arbitrary. In order to make out the theory
that there are two authors, one of whom is known by
the exclusive use of Elohim, and the other by the
exclusive use of Jehovah, and that the former is more
ancient than the latter, it is necessary to point out
paragraphs in which those Divine names are exclusive-
ly used, and also to prove that the Elohist does not
refer to the Jehovistic document ; for if the Elohist
plainly refers to what the Jehovist has related, the
latter cannot be posterior to the former, and the theory
fails. Now, unhappily for the theory, the word Jeho-
vah does occur in the Elohistic passages, and the Elo-
hist does refer to the Jehovistic narrative. Thus in
Genesis ii. 4, the two names occur together. " These
are the generations of the heavens and the earth when
they were created, in the clay when Jehovah Elohim
made the earth and the heavens." Now if this verse
belongs to what precedes, then the following narrative,
which has also the unusual union of the two names,
was written by the Elohist, and the first three chapters
are by one author. If it be written by the Jehovist,
how comes it to have Elohim as well, and why does it
difTer both from Elohist and Jehovist documents by
the union of the names ? Here is a difficulty which
has divided all Germany, and arrayed Rationalist
against Rationalist, and Orthodox against Orthodox,
and for which there seems no hope of solution, unless

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 2^5

violence be offered to the text, and men be persuaded,
against the evidence of manuscripts and ancient ver-
sions, that the words " These are the generations of the
heavens and the earth " stood originally as the heading
before the first verse of the first chapter, and that the
word Elohim in ii. 4 is an interpolation of the Jeho-
vist. Take another example : — Genesis v. is said to be
Elohistic, and it is certain that EloJiim, God, occurs
five times ; but in verse 29 appears the word. Jehovah
to disturb the theorist ; and not only is this word there,
but the verse refers to the Jehovistic chapter iii. 17.
What is to be done ? The verse stands in all the man-
uscripts and ancient versions. But, if the Elohistic
theory is to stand, it must be got rid of somehow. It
is an interpolation, says the theorist ; it was put in by
the compiler. In like manner the theorists cut off
chapter vii. 9 — 2-i from its context, and say, It is
Elohistic. But lo ! in verse 16 stands " Jehovah."
The same canon of the old Socinian criticism is again
applied ; the unwelcome word is an interpolation. One
instance more. The xlixth chapter is said to belong to
a long Elohistic portion. But in the 18th verse occur
those words of Jacob, " I have waited for thy salva-
tion, O Jehovah." Again the same violence is re-
peated. The disturbing verse is an interpolation. Is
this criticism? Is it a fair and legitimate proceeding
to alter the text, and that not once, but frequently, in
order to make it suit one's theory ? To discard the
consent of manuscripts, ancient versions, all printed
editions, and cry out, Interpolation, interpolation, with-
out any authority at all ? There is no more certain
sign of helpless prejudice or critical incompetence,
than to have frequent recourse to violent and unau-
thorized alteration of the text ; and yet without this
the theory of the Elohistic and Jehovistic documents,
even if it were unanimously received by modern critics,
could not be made out. Arbitrary separations of what
evidently belongs together, and unwarranted assertions
of interpolation, prove its unsoundness. The variety
of its modifications, one neutralizing the other, as has
10*

226 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

been shown above, demonstrates the uncertainty and
untrustworthiness of the results.

4. Bnt the theory rests upon an assumption totally
false, that the names Elohim and Jehovah are synony-
mous, and that they can be used indifferently, one for
the other. The names are not synonymous, and cannot
be so used. There is the same difference between
Elohim and Jehovah, as between Deus and Jupiter,
or homo and Petrus. The one expresses the genus, the
other stands for the individual, and is a proper name.
Elohim answers to our own word God or Deity, and is,
therefore, used of false Gods as well as of the true.
Jehovah stands for the personal, living, self-revealing
Being, and is explained in those two passages, Exod.
iii. 14, ".I am that I am ; " and xxxiv. 6, when, the
Lord having said, " I will proclaim my name before
thee," proclaimed " Jehovah, Jehovah, God [El] mer-
ciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth ; " and can therefore be applied to
none but the one true and eternal God, as is said, " I
am Jehovah ; that is my name, and my glory will
I not give to another." This distinction is strongly
marked in the words of Elijah, " If Jehovah be Elohim,
follow Him ; if Baal, then follow him." Here it would
be impossible to interchange Elohim and Jehovah, or
to say, " if Baal be Jehovah." There is an essential
difference in signification, and, though Jehovah is the
true God, and the true God Jehovah, and therefore
sometimes either might be used, yet, in consequence
of the essential difference, there are cases where there
is a peculiar propriety in using one rather than the
other ; and there are other cases in which one must be
used, and the other cannot. As Jehovah is the proper
name of God, it does not take a genitive case or a
suffix. It is, therefore, impossible to say in Hebrew,
"the Jehovah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," or "My,
thy, our Jehovah. " In such cases, Elohim must be
used, as " The Elohim, God of Abraham," &c. "My
Elohim, my God, our Elohim, our God," &c. Again,
as Jehovah signifies the self-revealing, that word can-

Essay V,] THE MOSAIC KECOED OF CEEATION. 227

not occur in the mouth of those to whom He has not
revealed himself, nor, ordinarily, in the mouth of
Hebrews speaking to such ; and, therefore, when Moses
and Aaron use it to Pharaoh, they add " the God of
Israel " to make it intelligible. But still Pharaoh asks,
" Who is Jehovah ? I know not Jehovah ; " and they
explain, " The Elohim, God of the Hebrews hath met
with us." There is no room here to go through and
illustrate all the peculiarities of these Divine names.
But what has been said is sufficient to show that the
exclusive use of Elohim cannot be received as a char
acteristic mark to distinguish one author from the other,
inasmuch as, in the cases above enumerated and others,
the use of Elohim is compulsory ; and neither Moses,
nor Samuel, nor Isaiah, could in these cases leave out
Elohim, and substitute Jehovah. Thus, in Gen. xl. 8,
the word Elohim occurs once, when Joseph says to the
Egyptian prisoners, " Do not interpretations belong to
God, Eloliim f " Here Jehovah could not be used.
Again, in xli., the word Elohim occurs eight times. In
six of them the use was compulsory. In xliii. 23 it
occurs twice with suffixes or genitive, and no other
word could be used, and so in other instances. * And,
therefore, the use of the word cannot be the character-
istic peculiarity of one author. In the first chapter of
Genesis, Moses might have used either Elohim or Jelio*
vah, except in the 27th verse, where Elohim was com-
pulsory. But in the opening of the Divine teaching,
it was necessary to make clear that God is Creator,
that the world was not eternal, nor independent ; and
also that Jehovah is not one among many — not the
national God of the Hebrews— but that Jehovah the
Self-revealer, and Elohim the Almighty Creator, are
one. Therefore, in the first chapter, Elohim is used
throughout. The Deity is the Creator. But in ap-
proaching that part of the narrative where the personal
God enters into relations with man, and where Jehovah

* Ewald in his 'Composition der Genesis/ and Hengstcnberg in his
'Authentie des Pentateuchs,' vol. i. pp. 306-391, have examined all the in-
stances where the names occur, and explained the propriety or the necessity.

228 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay T.

was necessary, Moses unites the names, and says, " Je-
hovah Elohiin, the Lord God." Had he suddenly used
Jehovah alone, there might have been a doubt as to
whether Jehovah was not different from Elohim. The
union of the two names proves identity, and this being
proved, from the fourth chapter on, Moses drops this
union and sometimes employs Jehovah, sometimes Elo-
him, as occasion, propriety, and the laws of the Hebrew
language require. The use of these names, therefore,
can prove nothing against the unity of the narrative.

5. But, in truth, independently of all philological
criticism, the unity of the first two chapters of Genesis
may be proved by comparing one with the other. They
do not contain two distinct accounts of " the Creation,"

The second chapter does not narrate the creation of
heaven or earth, or light, firmament, sun, moon, or
stars, sea, or dry land, fish, or creeping things. The
second chapter, therefore, is so far from being a cos-
mogony, that it is not even a geogony, and, therefore, the
fourth verse of the second chapter, " These are the
generations of the heavens and the earth when they
were created, in the day that the Lord God (Jehovah
Elohim) made the earth and the heavens," cannot be
the title or summary of what follows, but are an exact
recapitulation of what is narrated in the first chapter.
They mention first the creation of " the heavens and
the earth;" second, the making of " the earth and heav-
ens" in the very order in which the process of creation
is related in that chapter, but of which not one word is
said in what follows. The second chapter is obviously
not an account " of the creation," but of the particu-
lars of the formation of man, and his early history.
Ewald said long ago, " The aim of the first connected
narrative (ch. i. 1 — ii. 3) is to exhibit God as the Crea-
tor of the universe. . . The author then passes over
from the perfected picture of the created universe, to
that which must have been to him, as to all writers of
history, the most worthy of note, to the history of man.
Yet he closes the first picture with the words (ii. 4),
' These are the generations of the heavens and of the

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 9 29

earth.' " * The second chapter is, therefore, an integral
part of a relation contained in the three first chapters,
connected with the chapter by verse four, and prepar-
ing for the account of the Fall by telling us beforehand
of Paradise, of the tree of knowledge, the prohibition
to eat of it, and of the formation of the woman. Indeed,
most recent writers admit, that whether there be differ-
ent sources or not, the author has formed them into one
narrative; there cannot, therefore, be contradiction.
There are differences to be explained by the different
objects which the author had in view. In the first, his
object was to give an outline of the history of the uni-
verse ; in the second, to relate the origin and primitive
history of man, so far as it was necessary, as a prepara-
tion for the history of the Fall. In the former, there-
fore, all the steps of creation are treated in chronological
order. In the latter, only so much is alluded to as is
necessary for the author's purpose, and in the order
which that purpose required.

6. So much for modern criticism. But the new
theology also asserts that the Mosaic cosmogony is
contradicted by the discoveries and progress of science,
and that, therefore, Moses could not have been inspired.
This is a straightforward objection, deserves a fair and
full consideration, and ought not to be met with what
objectors can only regard as evasions. Such are the
assertions, that the first chapter of Genesis is poetry, or
a series of seven prophetic visions, f or the mere cloth-
ing of a theological truth. To urge such suppositions
is not to defend the ark of God, but to abandon it to
the enemy. If the first chapter of Genesis be .poetry,
or vision, or parable, it is not historic truth, which is
just what objectors assert. There are in this chapter
none of the peculiarities of Hebrew poetry. The style
is full of dignity, but it is that of prose narrative. There
is no mention of prophetic vision, no prophetic formula
employed. It is not said, "The vision which Moses

* < Composition der Genesis,' pp. 192, 193. To this division Ewald adheres,
as appears from his Essays on the subject in his ' Jahrbuch' for 1843, p. 77,
and 1849, p. 132.

t So Kurz, and after him, Hugh Miller.

230 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

saw," nor " I lifted up my eyes, and behold." The
prophet or historian is kept entirely out of sight, and
the narrative begins at once without any preface, " In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,"
and then goes to the account of Paradise, the birth of
Cain and Abel, &c, without any break or note of tran-
sition from vision to history. The Book of Genesis is
history. It is the historical introduction to the four
following books of the Pentateuch, or rather, to all fol-
lowing revelation, and the first chapter, as the insepa-
rable beginning of the whole, must be historical also.
When the Lord recapitulates its contents in the Fourth
Commandment, and makes it the basis of the ordinance
of the Sabbath, He stamps it as real history. To sup-
pose a moral, or even a ceremonial command, based
upon a poetic picture, or a vision, or an ideal narrative,
would be absurd. The Lord also treats " the first chap-
ters of Genesis" as real and authoritative history, when
He makes Gen. i. 27, and ii. 23, 24, the foundation of
His doctrine concerning marriage and divorce. As
history, therefore, they must be received, whatever
difficulties that reception may involve. Some, indeed,
hold that in reading the Bible, a distinction is to be
made between statements relating to religion, and those
relating to physics, that the former are to be received,
and the latter disregarded, as " The purpose of revela-
tion is to teach man what he cannot find out by his
unassisted reason, but not physical truths, for the dis-
covery of which he has faculties." But, what are we
to do when a truth is both religious and physical, such
as " God created the heavens and the earth " ? And
how are we to distinguish between what can be and
what cannot be discovered by man's natural faculties ?
On the one hand, the leading intellects of Germany are
still disputing about the eternity of the universe, and
the relation of the finite to the absolute ;• and on the
other, Deists and Theists, and Rationalists, teach that
all religious and moral truth can be discovered, and
has been discovered, by man's natural powers — can be
known in no other way, and that, therefore, revelation

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOUD OF CHEATION. 231

is unnecessary. Besides, if the first chapter of Genesis
be not given to teach us the facts and order of creation,
why is it there at all in all its circumstantiality ? Are
we to believe that Divine revelation begins with an
unscientific misstatement of physical truth 1 If the first
chapter be the offspring of human error, where does
Divine truth begin ? This principle raises many new
difficulties, and removes none. We, therefore, adhere
to the plain grammatical statement, as a Divine revela-
tion of the origin of the universe, not yet superseded by
the theories of the speculative philosophy, nor anti-
quated by the discoveries of modern science.

7. The first supposed difficulty in the Mosaic state-
ment is the age of the world. According to the teach-
ings of Geology and Astronomy, the existence of the
heavens and the earth is to be reckoned by myriads of
thousands of years. According to Moses, it is alleged,
they are of yesterday. To know whether this difficulty
is real, it is first necessary to know what Moses has
actually said. And here it is not intended to propose
anything new, but to revert to the ancient exposition
of the phrase, " In the beginning," for upon this the
cpiestion really turns. The first proposition is "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and
here it is necessary to observe that Reshith, the He-
brew word for " beginning," is in the original without
the definite article. Moses says, " In Reshith [not in
the Beshitli], Eloliim created the heavens and the
earth. " The antiquity and correctness of this reading
are proved by the Septuagint, Chaldee, and Syriac
versions.

LXX. yEv apxi)> Chaldee T-^pa, Syriac z**^-^,
and so it is also found in the Evangelist's allusion, John
i. 1. The uniformity of the reading, and the care with
which it had been preserved for centuries — notwith-
standing the natural temptation to supply the article —
testify that there was an uniform traditional meaning
attached to it, different from that possible, if the word
had the article. "What this meaning is, is plainly seen
in the first verse of St. John's Gospel. Now that Socin-

232

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay Y.

ian exegesis is a thing of the past, all divines, English
and foreign, agree that St. John here makes a pointed
reference' to Gen. i. 1, and that in the words iv apxfl>
" In the beginning," he expresses Duration or Time,
previous to Creation. So Dean Alford, " 'Ev dpxfj =
irpb rod rbv tcoo-fJLov elvai." "In the beginning" is
equivalent to " Before the world was. " Tholuck says
that the phrase expresses " Eternity a parte ante. "
Meyer also takes it of duration before time, and trans-
lates it VorzeitlicKkeit (pre-temporality), and says that it
is equivalent to the Septuagint version of Frov. viii.
23, "In the beginning, before he made the earth;"
and to the words of our Lord " Before the world was; "
and of St. Paul " Before the foundation of the world "
(Ephes. i. 4). De Wette has nearly the same words
and the same references. Liicke also says that the
phrase " In the beginning " includes the idea of pre-
mundane existence (des Vorweltlichen), and answers to
" Before the world was" (John xvii. 5). All are agreed
that "Beginning" refers to duration or time, not to
order, and that it is indefinite in its signification, and
may mean previous eternity, or previous time, accord-
ing to the subject spoken of. * They who believe that
St. John was inspired will receive his interpretation
of the first words of Genesis as infallibly correct, and
therefore interpret them there as in the Gospel. But
even if St. John be regarded as an ordinary writer
asserting an important truth, his adoption of the inter-
pretation proves that it was known to the Jews of his
time, and this is further proved by the nearly contem-
porary testimony of the Targum.

Its author Onkelos gives the same meaning, and
proves that it was then the received interpretation.
For the Hebrew B'reshith he gives B'kadmin ( iwpa)
in antiquities, or former times. The word IP dam,
equivalent to the Hebrew Kedem, signifies, as Buxtorf
says, " ante, antiqititas, prioritas, princijtium." In the
plural number, as Onkelos here has it, it signifies, not

* Similar is the meaning of the words in the Doxology, "As it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be."

Essay Y.J THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 933

order, but time, " ancient times, former times, eternity."
For example (Gen. xxviii. 19), "Luz was the name of
the city ^nipbn, from antiquities, or former times."
Again (Ps. Ixviii. 33), "To him that ricleth upon the
heavens of heavens of antiquity," the Chaldee has
•paipbon, " that were from antiquities, or former times"
which our translators followed, and have rendered,
" the heavens of heavens which were of old." Again
(Deut. xxxiii. 27), " The Eternal God (literally, the God
of antiquity or priority) ; " Onkelos has, " The God
who is from antiquities, •pa'ipVaV Here the word is
applied to eternity.* When, therefore, Onkelos trans-
lates the first word of Gen. i. 1, by B^kadmin in the
plural, and without the article, he meant, in antiquities,
informer times or duration, of old.

The LXX. use iv apxv in the same way, and thereby
prove that this interpretation was far more ancient than
Onkelos. Thus, in Ezek. xxxvi. 11, they employ dpxfi
to render Kadmah {former state), and give as the
parallel eparpocrOev for Jlishah, nearly related to Reshith.
KaroiKia) vfxa<; &>? to iv apxS vfxwv, teal eu irQU]aco v/jLa<s
cbo~7rep ra €/jL7rpoa6ev vficov.

Again, in Prov. viii. 23, they apply it to express
duration antecedent to creation. Ilpb rod al&vos
iOepbekiwcre fxe' iv apx(l ^P0 T°v TVV lViv irourjcrai.

In Deut. xxxiii. 15, it signifies antiquity. For
" aucient mountains," literally "mountains of antiquity,"
the LXX. have dirb /copv(f)r)$ opecov dpxfjs, parallel to
(3ovvoiv devdcov. According, then, to the LXX., " in
the beginning" means " in former duration, of old."

This is also the meaning of the Hebrew. The word
Beshith having, according to its form, an abstract
meaning, and coming from Bosh or JResh, head, signi-
.fies first of all, as Gesenius says, " the being head ; "
and, therefore, applied to rank or quality, would ex-
press " superiority " — to order, "priority" like its
synonym Saip, whose first meaning is priority — to time,
" anteriority '." To " former time," " state at a former
time," it refers in Job xlii. 12, "The Lord blessed the

* Compare Jonathan on Micah v. 2.

234 AIDS T0 FAITn. [Essay V.

latter end of Job more than his beginning," where the
LXX. translate more exactly, 6 Be Kvptos evXojvcre ra
ecr^ara 'Io)/5 i) ra efiirpoadev, and so Hirzel has "n^ns,
die spatere, mExi, die friihere Lebenszeit." So in Jer.
xxviii. 1, "in the beginning (Reshith) of the reign of
Zedekiah," beginning does not mean the first day, nor
the first year, but the former part of his reign, as the
prophet immediately adds, " in the fourth year." This
is also the meaning in Isai. xlvi. 10, " declaring the
end from the beginning," properly, " declaring futurity
from former time," as is explained by the following
clause — " and from ancient times the things which are
not done." According then, to the Hebrew, the mean-
ing of the first verse of Genesis is, " In Heshith (ante-
riority), i.e., in former times, of old, God created the
heavens and the earth ;" and the article is omitted
to exclude the application of the word to the order of
creation. This is also the sense given in other words
by the Psalmist (cii. 26). " Of old (t^sb * formerly)
hast thou laid the foundation of the earth."

The sum, then, of all that has been said is, that the
words, "In the beginning," refer to "time or duration,"
not to order — and thus, therefore, the first verse does
not mean, "At first God created the heavens and the
earth," nor, "In the beginning of creation he created
the heavens and the earth," but " Of old, in former du-
ration, God created the heavens and the earth." How
long ago is not said. The Hebrew word is indefinite,
and can include millions or milliards of years just as
easily as thousands. The statement of Moses is, there-
fore, not contrary to the discoveries of geology, which
alleges the earth to have existed for myriads of years
before the creation of man. Moses's words are big
enough to take in times indefinite, exceeding the pow-
ers of human comprehension. They also answer the
more ancient objectors, who found it absurd that God
created nothing in previous eternity, and had remained
inactive until a few thousand years ago.f The words

* Compare Isa. xli. 26, where c:t^£ is parallel to W8PTS3.

+ See Augustine ' de Civit. Dei,' Lib. xi. 4, 5 ; ' Confess.' xi. 10. Com-

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 035

of Moses, rightly understood, say just the contrary.
They leave " the when " of creation undefined.

8. But though thus comprehensive as to the time,
they are precise as to the fact of creation. Moses says
"God created," and Bara, the word here used, is pe-
culiar. There are three words employed in the old
Testament in reference to the production of the world
— Bard, he created ; Yatzdr, he formed ; Asdh, he
made — between which there is this difference, that the
two last may be, and are, used of men. The first word
Bard is never predicated of any created being, angel
or man, but exclusively appropriated to God, and God
alone is called Bore &03 Creator. Creation is therefore,
according to the Hebrew, a Divine act — something that
can be performed by God alone. In the next place,
though, according to its etymology, it does not necessa-
rily imply a creation out of nothing, it does signify the
Divine production of something new, something that
did not exist before. See Numb. xvi. 30 ; Jer. xxxi. 22.
And therefore Gesenius says, in his ' Thesaurus,' " In
that common disputation of interpreters and theologians
concerning the creation out of nothing, some appeal to
this word [Bara] as if it could be inferred from its
etymology, or proper signification, that in the first
chapter of Genesis, not a creation out of nothing, but
a conformation of eternal matter is taught. But, from
what has been said, it will be abundantly plain, that
the use of this verb in Kal is altogether different from
its primary signification, and that it is more used of
new production (see Gen. ii. 3) than of the conformation
and elaboration of matter. But that in the first verse
of Genesis the first creation of the world out of nothing,
and in a rude and unformed state, and in the remainder
of the first chapter the elaboration and disposition of
the recently created mass is set forth, is proved by the
connection of things in this whole chapter. Thus, also,
the Rabbis (as may be seen in Aben Esra to Gen. i. 1)
say that ' creation is a production of something from

pare also ' Origen de Principiis,' iii. 5, and ' Calvin's Commentaries on
Genesis.'

236 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

nothing.' " This is also the explanation given in the
Psalms. In Ps. cxlviii. 5 we read, " For He, He com-
manded, and they were created." The parallel passage
(Ps. xxxiii. 9) says, " For He, He said, and it existed
(Wi). He, He commanded, and it stood." It is true
that the how of creation, the link between the Divine
will and the realisation, is not made known. Perhaps
to finite minds it is incomprehensible. But, notwith-
standing, the word creation is more than a name for
our ignorance of the mode of production. It teaches
that neither the world, nor the matter of which it is
composed, is eternal or self-existent — that the universe
is not a pantheistic emanation, but a work of the Divine
will and power; and this Mosaic doctrine, in accord-
ance with all sound reason, has not been shaken by
any discoveries or theories of science. Even though
the nebulous theory were demonstrably certain; though
all the starry hosts were mere agglomerations of ele-
mentary matter, which was once diffused like "an
universal fire-mist" throughout all space, and impressed
with fixed laws, or endowed with self-evolving powers,
yet there must be a maker of that fire-mist and its fifty-
five elementary substances — there must be a law-giver,
who imposed those laws, or communicated those powers,
and who produced that change of temperature, with-
out which agglomeration would have been impossible —
that is, there must have been a Creator, and therefore
the words of Moses would still be true, " God created
the heavens and the earth." " Sic philosophi debuerunt,
si forte eos primus aspectus mundi conturbaverat, pos-
tea cum vidissent motus ejus finitos et sequabiles, om-
niaque ratis ordinibus moderata, immutabilique con-
stantia, intelligere inesse aliquem non solum habitato-
rem in hac celesti ac divina domo, sed etiam Pectorem
et Moderatorem, et tanquam Architectum tanti operis
tantique muneris." *

9. In order to understand the Mosaic narrative, the
next thing to be considered is the meaning of the
phrase "The heavens and the earth," and the purpose
of the whole verse. Some take it as a title or summary

* ' De Nat. Deorum,' Lib. ii. c. 85.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC KECOED OF CEEATION. 23'/

of .the contents of the chapter. But this view is for-
bidden by the conjunction "and," with which the
second verse begins. " In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. 2. And the earth was with-
out form, and void." This "and" makes the second
verse a continuation of the narrative -begun in the first.
The proposition, "And the earth was without form,
and void," implies that the earth was in existence, and
that something had been said of it with which the
" and " is the connecting link. Besides, if the first
verse be not a part of the narrative, but only a heading,
the creation of the earth is not mentioned at all in the
narrative itself. The first verse is, therefore, not a
summary, but a part of the history of creation.

Others suppose that the first verse describes the
creation of the materials out of which heaven and earth
were afterwards formed. But this is simply to put into
the verse what is not there. " Heaven and earth "
never mean materials, and if they did, that meaning
would not agree with the context. The connecting
" and " of the second verse shows that the earth of the
second verse is that earth spoken of in the first verse,
not the materials. Moses is very precise and clear in
his statements, and as he names " the heavens and the
earth," no expositor can legitimately give that phrase
a meaning which it has not in any other place in the
Old Testament. The first question then, here, is, what
Moses intended by " the heavens," for the word is plural,
and has no singular in Hebrew. That something differ-
ent from the firmament is intended is plain from the
order of the narrative. It is not said, God made the
earth and the heavens, but of old, in former duration,
God made the heavens and the earth. Then it is re-
lated that the earth was without form, and void ; dark-
ness was upon the face of the deep ; the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters ; God said, Let there
be light. Then, on the second day, God made the
firmament, and called it heavens. The heavens of the
first verse were made in former duration, before the
moving of the Spirit, before the appearance of light.

238 AID3 T0 FAITH [Esay V

The heavens of the seventh and eighth verses, were
made on the second day, after the earth and after light.
The difference of time proves a difference of subjects,
just as there is a difference between the earth of the
first verse, which means the whole terraqueous globe,
and the earth of the tenth verse, which is only the dry
land. And this difference between the heavens of the
first verse and the firmament is strongly marked in the
fourth verse of the second chapter — " These are the
generations of the heavens and the earth, when they
were created, in the day that the Lord God made the
earth and the heavens." In the first half reference is
made to the primitive creation, and therefore the order
of the first verse is preserved. In the latter half refer-
ence is made to the creation of the earth in its empty
state, and the subsequent making of the firmament;
and, therefore, earth is put first, before heavens, an
inversion that must be intentional, as the phrase " heav-
en and earth " is in Scripture a standing formula, but
the inversion " earth and heaven " occurs only once
more in the Bible (Ps. cxlviii. 13). The first expres-
sion, " the heavens and the earth," comprehends all
created things, the universe ; the second, " earth and
heavens," takes in only the earth and that portion of
the universe immediately connected with it. The ob-
ject of the historian is first to assert that God is the
Creator of all created things, invisible as well as visi-
ble ; then to narrate the manner in whicli this earth
was prepared for the abode of man by the same Al-
mighty Being, so as to leave no room for the eternity
of matter, nor yet for two Creators, one of whom made
the high and holy spiritual world, the other, this lower
and material world. The Jews knew that there were
other heavens, as those where angels dwell, mentioned
xxviii. 12-17, whither, perhaps, Elijah was carried (2
Kings ii. 1), and the heavens where is the throne of
God (Ps. xi. 4 ; ciii. 19), called also the heavens of
heavens. That these heavens and the angels were
made before the earth and the firmament appears
from Job xxxviii. 7, " When the morning stars sang

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 239

together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
They are, therefore, included in the statement of the
first verse, " Of old God made the heavens and the
earth," as they certainly are in the first verse of the
second chapter, where Moses, summing up the entire
work of creation of the universe, the primitive creation
and the six days' work, says, " Thus the heavens and
the earth were finished, and all the host of them." The
expression " host of heaven " sometimes means the heav-
enly bodies, sometimes angels : thus, in Deut. xix. 4,
it evidently refers to the former ; in 1 Kings xxii. 19,
Isa. xxiv 21, Ps. cxlviii. 2, it as plainly refers to the
latter, who are called " Jehovah's host " (Josh. v. 14,
15), and " God's host " (Gen. xxxii), where the corre-
sponding word nana is used. Therefore, in this sum-
ming up of creation, " all the host of them " is men-
tioned to include angels, often referred to in this Book
of Genesis, and to teach that they were not independent
beings, but creatures of God. According to the Bible,
then, this earth is not the centre of the universe. Long
before it was fashioned for man there were heavens, and
morning stars, and angels ; regions more glorious than
the earth, heavens more ancient than the firmament,
heavenly inhabitants who excel in strength, and who
looked on in wTonder and adoration when they beheld
the earth fashioned by the Creator. The ken of Moses
and the Hebrews was not limited to this earth, nor their
idea of duration to the time that man has existed. They
knew that the earth in its present condition was later
than the heavens and their host, and the human race
young when compared with the angels of God.

10. Verse 2. — The next statement made by Moses
is so far from being in opposition to the discoveries of
science that it is an extraordinary anticipation of what

feology teaches. It presents to us the earth before its
abitation by man, covered with water, and utterly de-
void of inhabitants or life. " The earth was [or, as
others translate, had become*'} desolation and empti-
ness, and darkness upon the face of the raging deep,

* Dathius. Post haec vero terra facta erat vasta et edserta.

240 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

and the Spirit of God brooding upon the face of the
waters." Very similar are the statements of geologists,
who, though believing that the earth was first in a state
of igneous fusion, suppose that before the various for-
mations and deposits began, it was first entirely covered
with water. So PfafT says, " We soon perceive not only
that by far the greatest part of our earth was under
water, but that to water it owes its origin, and that
under water the entire gradual formation of these
mighty masses took place." And again, " The earth
was at first a molten fiery sphere, over which existed
a thick atmosphere, containing all the water of the
earth. In consequence of cooling a firm crust was
formed, which was everywhere uniformly covered by
water, condensed in like manner by the same cooling
process."* The conflicts between the waters and the
fiery heat, as the crust of the earth was broken, fell
in, or was upheaved, are vividly described by M.
d'Orbigny, and his account answers well to the words
of Moses, "The earth was desolation and emptiness,
and darkness upon the face of the raging deep." It
is not necessary to accept this theory of " a molten
fiery sphere," as the Neptunists describe a somewhat
similar state, produced by water only, and a sober
though able author speaks of it only as a guess.
" Geology . . . may guess at conditions of origi-
nal igneous fluidity or aqueous plasticity in the mass,
and may hint at some great law of secular contraction ;
but it must be confessed that on these and similar points
science is yet unable to offer anything like the certainty
of demonstration."! But the great facts of the sub-
mersion of the earth, and its desolation and emptiness,
were stated by Moses more than 3000 years ago, and
his statements have not only not been disproved, but
have been confirmed, by the deductions of modern
scientific research. But how this state of " igneous
fluidity or aqueous plasticity," and consequent desola-
tion and emptiness, arose ; whether God created the

* Pfaff's ' Schopfungsgeschichte,' pp. 3 and 615. See also D'Orbigny,
' Cours elementaire,' torn, ii., Fascic. i. 201 ; Lardner's ' Pre-Adamite Earth/
§ 1ST ; ' Essays and Reviews,' pp. 213, 14.

t Page's 'Advanced Text-book of Geology,' p 25.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 241

earth desolate and empty, or whether it became so in
consequence of some mighty catastrophe, neither ]STep-
tunists nor Vulcanists can tell ns, nor has Moses ex-
pressly declared, though the latter appears to some to
be implied in his words. There seems to be a contrast
between the state of the heavens and that of the earth.
" Of old God created the heavens and the earth. And
the earth was desolation and emptiness," not so the
heavens. If Dathius's translation, " The earth had be-
come desolation and emptiness,"* be correct, it would
follow this was not the earth's original state. How the
change from the chaotic, the desolate and the empty,
was effected, science cannot tell. Moses informs ns
that it was by the action of the Divine Spirit. " The
Spirit of God brooding on the face of the waters," not
" the wind of God," as the verb raehaph [to brood] is
never nsed of wind. . " The Spirit streamed forth from
God upon the chaos, communicated to it life-power,
and made it capable of development at God's bidding,
and of bringing forth plants and animals. For, accord-
ing to the Old Testament, the Spirit of God is the
quickening principle of the world, and all life is an
outgoing from God ; according to Psalm civ. 30, even
the life of the vegetable kingdom. "f

11. Verses 3, and 14-1D. — The next Mosaic state-
ment is found in verses 3-5, " And God said, Let there
be light, and there was light. And God saw the light,
that it was good, and God separated between the light
and between the darkness. And God called the light
day, and the darkness He called night. And evening
happened, and morning happened, one day,"J and has

* This translation is supported by the fact that the verb iffi is, in some
twenty places in this chapter, correctly translated by yivofxat and^o, and not
by el/xl or sum, and has elsewhere, without a following b, the same significa-
tion, e.g. Isai. lxiv. 5, 9, where see Ewald, Zunz, and Rosenmiiller. That the
earth was not originally desolate also seems to be implied in Isai. xlv. IS.
" He created not the earth a desolation" [Tohu].

t Knobel in loc. Comp. Gesenius, 'Thesaurus,' in Had. fm. "De
Spiritu Dei. qui rndi creationis moli incuhdbat f ovens et vivificans!"

X The exact force of the Hebrew words, especially of the verb im Jio, is

more apparent in the LXX. than in our Authorized Version. Kal elirei/ 6

deos Teyrjd^rca <pws, Kal iyeuero (pais. Kal eldev 6 Oehs rb tyws on KaAov,

Kal Szex^p'o'ev 6 8ebs ava. /xecrou tov (pcorbs Kal ai>a jj-iaov rod ckotovs' Kal

11

242 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay T.

given occasion to many objections. Celsns found it
strange that Moses should speak of days before the ex-
istence of the sun.* "How did God create the light
before the sun ? " asked Voltaire. " How did He make
the day before the sun was made ? "f " Modern as-
tronomy," says D. F. Strauss, " found it contrary to
order, that the earth should not only have been created
before the sun, but should also, besides day and night,
have distinction of the elements and vegetation before
the sun." :£ " Light and the measurement of time are
represented as existing before the manifestation of the
sun, and this idea, although repugnant to our modern
knowledge, has not in former times appeared absurd,"
is the objection of ' Essays and Reviews ;'§ and, as is
evident, is not the result of modern science, having
been broached already by Celsns. As, however, recent
writers give modern science the credit of it, it becomes
necessary to ask, what does modern science teach with
regard to the relative ages of the earth and the sun ?
The answer is, Nothing, absolutely nothing as a scien-
tific certainty. Whether sun and earth were created
simultaneously, and in their present relations — or,
whether the earth, already created, wandered within
the range of solar attraction, or whether, after the sun
existed, the earth was called forth within that range,
science does not know. It has, however, without any
reference to the Book of Genesis, proposed a theory,
which has been accejDted by some of the most scientific
men of these days as highly probable.] Had it been
devised for the express purpose of removing the sup-
posed diflicuties of the Mosaic account, it could hardly
have been more to the purpose. It supposes that the

e'/caAecej/ 6 6ebs rb (pais iifxipav ical tc> ckotos e/coAecre vvicra, ical iy&ero
ecrirepa Kcd iyeuero Trpcoi, 7]jxipa fxla.

* Origen ' contra Cclsuni,' vi. CO, torn. i. 678.

t Voltaire's Works, vol. xxxiii. 403.

X ' Glaubenslehre/ vol. i. p. 622. § P. 219.

|| Of the theory in its present form La Place is the author. Perhaps the
first suggestion came from Sir W. Herschel. It has been adopted by the
great German astronomer, Madler, and extended to comets. It has been
defended by Pfaff, and its truth has been taken for granted by Humboldt,
'Cosmos,' i. 85, 90, iv. 163. It is also advocated by the author of 'Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation.'

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION.

243

whole solar system was originally one mass uf vapoury
or nebulous matter, which, according to the laws of
gravitation, assumed the form of an immense sphere.
This sphere received (from without) an impulse which
caused it to revolve on its axis from west to east. In
consequence of this revolving motion, it became flat-
tened at the poles and swollen in the equatorial region,
and in consequence of the greatness of the centrifugal
force at the equator, and the contemporaneous conden-
sation and contraction of the nebulous mass, a free
revolving ring, similar to that of Saturn, detached it-
self in the region of the equator. This ring not being
of uniform density, and in consequence of contraction,
broke in one or more places, and these fragments, in
obedience to the laws of gravitation, became a sphere
or spheres, that is, a planet, or planets, all necessarily
revolving from west to east, round the parent mass.
Another ring was formed in like manner, and another
planet came into existence, and so on until the whole
solar system was complete. A similar process took
place with regard to some of the planets, and thus they
got their moons.*

ISTow, according to this theory, not only the earth,
but all the planets of our system, existed before the sun
in its present condition. As these planets are now not
self-illuminating, it may be supposed that the rings,
when detached from the original nebulous mass, were
dark also, and therefore that the equatorial matter of
the parent nebulous sphere of which they were com-

* La Place, 'Exposition du Systeme du Monde,' G^mc edition, note vii. pp.
4G5 and sqq. ; Pfaff 's ' Schupfun'gsgeschichte,' Kap. xiii. ; Humboldt's ' Cos-
mos,' as above. This theory is also applied by La Place and others to account
for the zodiacal light. M. Plateau has furnished an ingenious experimental
verification. He mixed alcohol and water until the mixture was of the same
specific gravity as oil. The mixture was then put into a glass box, and a
certain quantity of oil introduced, which immediately took the form of a
globe. He now applied an axis, which passed through the axis of the oil
globe, and caused the box to rotate rapidly. In consequence of the rotation
the oil globe flattened at the poles and swelled out at the equator. A more
rapid motion disengaged a ring of oil, revolving in the same direction as the
oil globe. This ring broke, and the fragments formed globes or planets ro-
tating on their axes, and revolving round the parent "globe. See Pfaff, p.
318; also 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,' "reprint of sixth edi-
tion, pp. 11-14.

044 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay V.

posed was also devoid of light — that therefore the sun
did not receive its luminous atmosphere until all the
planets had been detached. But, until this luminous
atmosphere existed, they could not derive their light
from the sun. If, on the other hand, it be supposed
that these detached rings were luminous, and that the
planets formed from them were luminous also, then
the planets had a light of their own, independent of the
sun. But however that be, so much follows from this
theory, that the earth existed before the residuary
parent globe could be called the sun, or could perform
its office of luminary to the system. If the earth there-
fore had light during this period, it must have been de-
rived from some other source. That this is possible
cannot now be denied. The discoveries with regard to
heat, combustion, electricity, galvanism, show that
there may be light independent of the sun. It is also
now generally received that the sun itself is an opaque
body, and that solar light proceeds from a luminous at-
mosphere by which it is surrounded.* The progress
of science has, therefore, neutralized the objection that
light could not exist before the sun. Indeed it has
done more — it has proved the accuracy of the Mosaic
language. Moses does not call the sun "Or, light," but
" Jlaor, a place or instrument of light," a luminary,
or candlestick,-)* just what modern science has discov-
ered it to be. Thus, so far is the Mosaic doctrine of
light from being opposed to recent discoveries, that if
Moses had wished to describe the modern doctrine con-
cerning light, he could not have expressed himself more
happily. " Scripture does not say that God created the
light, or made it, but said, ■ Let it be, and it was ! '

* Arago's « Astronomy,' pp. 56, 57 ; Pfaff, p. 621 ; Humboldt's * Cosmos,'
iii. 271, etc. ; Walker's ' Physical Constitution of the Sun,' p. 6. The won-
derful discoveries of Kirchoff and others in solar chemistry are supposed by
some to confirm La Place's theory, and to prove that the earth was before the
sun, and had a light of its own.

t Knobel, in his Commentary, has " Lichtorte." For the meaning of
nouns formed by prefixing 12, see Ewald's ' Grammar,' §§ 337 and 339 :— " a
may signify, first, that wherein anything happens, the place of action (the

so-called a loci) ; secondly, the instrument of action ; thirdly, the what

of the action." Compare also 'Simonis 'Arcanum Formarum,' pp. 447-504;
Gesenius's ' Lehrgeb. p. 494, § 14.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 245

If, then, light be not a separate and definite body, but
only vibrations or undulations of ether, somehow set in
motion, the sacred writer could not have expressed its
appearance in words more beautiful or more agreeable
to truth." *

Now, this theory of La Place may or may not be
true,f but it is an offspring of modern science, and
implies, just like the Mosaic account, the pre-existence
of the earth before the sun became the luminary of the
system. It does, indeed, also imply the pre-existence
of the great parent nebulous globe, but this is not con-
trary to the Mosaic account. Moses does not say that
the body of the sun or moon and stars were created on
the fourth day, but according to the Hebrew, " God
said, Let there be light-holders in the firmament of the
heaven, .... and let them be for light-holders in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

and God made the two great light-holders and

God gave *p*\ them in the firmament of heaven to
give light upon the earth, and the stars." The Hebrew
word, Asah, make, may signify " make ready, prepare,
dress" (see Gesenius's ' Lexicon,' in verb.). The crea-
tion of the sun or parent globe may be included in
verse 1, and the work of the fourth day consisted in
furnishing it with its luminous atmosphere. When
this took place, and the sun began to shed its light,
then the moon, and the earth's fellow planets, " the
stars," of verse 16, became luminaries also. The stars
of this sixteenth verse are certainly different from those
morning stars of which Job speaks, which were in ex-
istence long before, and, as connected with the sun and
moon, seem naturally to mean those belonging to the
solar system, and which received their light on the
fourth day, when the sun became luminous. Having

* ' Cosmogony of Moses,' by M. Marcel de Serres, Professor of Mineralogy
and Geology at Montpellier, German edition, p. 45. Compare the language
of St. Paul, 2 Cor. iv. 6. It is a curious fact that the Hebrew verb nns, which
signifies "to flow," also signifies "to shine, give light." ""1^113, light. Job
iii. 4.

+ Compare WheWell's ' Indications of the Creator.' pp. 54, 162, and his
'Philosophy of Discovery,' pp. 304, 305; 'Plurality of Worlds,' p. 199.

246 ^II)S T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

thus seen how modern science proves that the earth
and light might exist, and, according to scientific
theory, probably did exist before the sun, it is no
longer difficult to conceive, how there might also be a
measure of time. What that measure was, the length
of that " one day," of which Moses speaks, it is now
necessary to inquire.

12. The question, then, naturally arises, How are
we to understand the word " day " ? Is it a period of
twenty-four hours, or is it an indefinite portion of time %
It is quite certain that the Almighty could not only
arrange the earth in six ordinary days, but that He
could create the whole universe by a momentary ex-
ertion of His power. The shortness of the time,
therefore, is no valid objection. The contrary ob-
jection that six ordinary days are too long, and that
instantaneous creation is more worthy of Omnipotence,
is just as strong. But nature and Scripture both
teach us that it has pleased God to work gradually.
His purpose was to fill the earth with inhabitants, and
yet only a single pair was created. He announced the
Redeemer in Paradise, but 4000 years passed away
before the fulness of the time was come. It is His
will that the whole earth shall be filled with the knowl-
edge of Himself; but the diffusion of that knowledge
has been left to gradual preaching and human instru-
mentality. So in nature, trees, animals, and men
have small beginnings, and require time to attain to
perfection. This twofold course of the Divine procedure,
in grace and in nature, guards us against the necessity
of supposing that the arrangement of the earth was
of necessity sudden, or a series of instantaneous ex-
hibitions of Omnipotence. The facts of creation, how-
ever, must be gathered from the Mosaic statement.
Moses undoubtedly reckons six days. But it is an old
and true observation, that in the Bible the word "day"
often signifies undefined periods of time, as " the day
of the Lord," "the day of vengeance," "that day,"
" the night is far spent, the day is at hand." In this
narrative (ii. 4) the word takes in the whole time of the

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 247

creative work. The first three clays were certainly not
measured by the interval between sunset and sunset,
for as yet the sun was not perfect, and had no light.
The first day consisted of an alternation of light and
darkness. But how long the light lasted, and how long
the darkness until the next dawn, is not said. That
there was an alternation of light and darkness, is re-
lated in the words, "And God divided between the
light and between the darkness. And God called the
light Day, and the darkness He called Night." First
there had been universal darkness. "Darkness was
upon the face of the deep." Out of this darkness God
caused the light to shine. " God said, Let there be
light, and there was light." It might, then, be sup-
posed that this light being as universal as the darkness
had been, there was now only continued, uninterrupted
light in the world, and no darkness more until the new
order of things commenced in the fourth day. The
sacred historian guards against this supposition by
relating that God divided between the light and the
darkness, and that, in consequence of this division,
evening happened, and morning happened, so that one
stage of creation was divided from the other by an
interval of darkness. The time of light in which the
Divine work proceeded, He called Day, and the time of
darkness He called Night." It was not a day measured
by the presence of the sun's light, nor a night meas-
ured by the absence of that light. There was light
and there was darkness, and God called the light Day,
and the darkness He called Night. The union of these
two periods of light and darkness He calls " one day,"
"a second day," " a third day," to mark the distinctive
breaks in the progress of the development of the world.
In the fifth verse " day " is taken in two senses, — first,
of the duration of the light; and secondly, of the
whole time of light and darkness together. But how
long the light continued before it was evening, or how
long the darkness continued before it was morning, or

* Compare the words of our Lord, " I must work the works of Him that
scut me, while it is day ; the uight cometh wheu uo man cau work."

248 AIDS T0 FAITU. [Essay V.

what was the duration of the two together, we are not
told ; and so far there is nothing to cause us to con-
clude that the whole was equal to twenty-four hours.
It is true that David Strauss * urges the mention of
"evening and morning," and thence concludes that
they must be common days ; and there is a general
persuasion that Moses here reckons according to the
usual custom of the Hebrews, from evening to evening,
supposing that the original darkness is the first even-
ing, and that the sj:>ace of time occupied by it and by
the light which succeeded, is described as the first day.
But this mistake arises from confining the attention to
the English translation, which says " And the evening
and the morning were the first day." f But the He-
brew and the ancient versions have "And evening
happened, and morning happened, one clay." Now if
the first day begins with the original darkness, then
the first day consists of the original darkness, the light,
and the evening that followed, ending with the morning,
and thus the first day would have an evening at the
beginning and an evening at the end. The mention of
morning, " evening happened and morning happened,"
ought to have guarded against this mistake. Evening
and morning do not together make a day, but only a
part of a day. The whole day is not complete until
the following evening. But that Moses does not here
reckon from evening to evening is proved from the
account of the first day. The evocation of light is the
prominent object of the first day's work, but it is after
this evocation of light that it is said "And there was
evening, and there was morning, one day." If, there-
fore, the day began with the evening, light was created
before that first day began, and there would be no
account at all of what was done the first day. The
first day must, therefore, be reckoned as beginning at
the appearance of light, and continuing through the
evening to the dawn. The appearance of light, with

* ' Glaubenslehre/ p. 624.

# t This is plainly the source of error in 'Essays and Reviews/ where it is
said, " The space of time occupied by the original darkness and the light
which succeeded, is described as the first day." P. 219.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 249

the darkness that followed the evening until the next
dawn, is the first day. With that dawn the second
day begins. This mode of reckoning, unique in the
Bible, and peculiar to this first chapter of Genesis, sug-
gests that the days are peculiar too. To know the
length of the first day, it would be necessary to know
how long the night continued after its first appearance
until the evening came, and then how long from even-
ing until the first dawn. But this is not told us. The
ordinance concerning the reckoning of time, " Let them
be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for
years," wras not given until the fourth day, and could
have no application until after the creation of Adam.
Not by the sun, then, wTere the days measured, but by
light and darkness, which God called Day and Night,
of the length of which we are not informed ; and, con-
sequently, there is nothing in the text to compel us to
restrict the days to the time of the earth's diurnal mo-
tion. If the length of the days is to be measured by
that of the seventh, the day of God's rest, those days
must be indefinite periods, for the clay of rest still
continues. It is said, chap. ii. 2, "And he rested on
the seventh day from all the work which He had
made," without any mention of evening and morning.
The day of rest, therefore, still continues, and this is
plainly expressed and argued in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, " Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being
left us of entering into His rest, any of you should
seem to come short of it," or, as some moderns trans-
late, " Let us then be careful, lest as a promise to enter
into His [God's] rest still remains, any of you appear
remaining behind." On which words Stuart says,
" In chapter iv. 1, he brings forward the assertion that
the promise of entering into the rest of God still re-
mains, addressed to the Hebrew Christians as it was
to the Israelites of old. . . . But what is the rest in
question? Is it quiet possession of the land of
Canaan? No, says the Apostle. Believers now en-
ter into the rest (verse 3), i.e. (adds he) the same kind
of rest as was anciently proffered. Moreover, God
11*

250 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

calls it Kardiravalv fiov, My rest, i.e. (adds he) such
rest as God enjoyed, after He completed the creation
of the world, consequently spiritual, heavenly rest.
This is plain (as he goes on in verse 4) from what the
Scripture says, Gen. ii. 2, concerning the rest of God."
According, then, to this declaration that God's rest or
Sabbath still continues, the seventh day of creation is
an indefinite period and the other days may be also.
The six days are days of the Lord, God's clays, as the
first Sabbath was God's rest, and, therefore, as God
rested on His seventh day, man is commanded to rest
on his seventh day, and God blessed and sanctified it.
13. But though the Mosaic language implies that the
six days of which he speaks are six periods of time, it
does not follow that they are to be identified with the
six periods commonly received in geology. Indeed, to
those who have no theory to establish, it is apparent
that they do not agree, neither is it necessary that they
should. That the Mosaic account is not contradicted
by modern discovery is quite sufficient. The impossi-
bility of identifying these periods is evident from the
fact that of the work of two days in the Mosaic ac-
count geology knows nothing, and astronomy nothing
certain ; namely, that of the first on which the light
was called forth ; and of the fourth day, when the sun
and the planetary system were perfected. Moses gives
an outline of the history of creation, such as would be
intelligible to those for whom he wrote, and suitable as
an introduction to Divine revelation, and on both ac-
counts necessarily limited in the matter and brief in
the narration. He, therefore, notices only those things
necessary to a true religious system, or perceptible by
men. After the original creation of heaven and earth,
and the condition of earth, he mentions the evocation
of light and the creation of the ether, in which the
heavenly bodies move, as effected in the first two days.
Whether anything else was created in those two days,
he neither affirms nor denies. So far therefore as the
Mosaic record is concerned, these two days may in-
clude the whole of the primary, secondary, and tertiary

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOKD OF CREATION. 251

formations, with all their products, their flora and their
fauna. The products of those periods, buried in the
earth, were, so far as we know, utterly unknown to the
Israelites and their contemporaries, and to mankind
for many ages after. Even to ourselves the knowledge
is recent. For Moses to mention* them, was not only
unnecessary, but would have been altogether out of
place. Such details would have encumbered the out-
line, and turned away the attention from God the
Creator to things at that time invisible and unintelli-
gible. The object of the Mosaic narrative is to explain
the origin of the universe and of its parts, as they were
known or visible to men of that day. So soon, there-
fore, as lie has mentioned the light and the ether, he
advances at once to the preparation of the earth for
man ; and thus the third day presents the dry land in
its present state, with its flora differing from the pre-
ceding geological stages. Of this state of things, Page
says : "At the close of the Pleistocene period the pres-
ent distribution of sea and. land seems to have been es-
tablished ; the land presenting the same surface of
configuration, and the sea the same coast line, with the
exception of such modifications as have since been pro-
duced by the atmospheric, aqueous, and other causes,
described in chap. iii. At the close of that period, the
earth also appears to have been peopled by its present
flora and fauna, with the exception of some local re-
movals of certain animals, and the general extinction
of a few species." * According to the Mosaic account
the growth of grass, herb and fruit trees, begun on the
third day, must have gone on through the fourth.
Then on the fifth day the marine, and on the sixth the
land animals of the present period were called into ex-
istence. The words of Moses, " Let the dry land ap-
pear," are in exact accordance with what geology
relates. The rise of the ocean had buried the tertiary
world in its waters. " The disruption of the earth's
crust, extending W. 16° S., and E. 16° K, through which
the chain of the great Alps was forced up to its pres-

* * Advanced Text-book,' p. 300.

252 A1DS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

cnt elevation, which, according to M. d'Orbigny, was
simultaneous with that which forced up the Chilian
Andes, a chain which extends over a length of 3000
miles of the western continent, terminated the tertiary
age, and preceded immediately the creation of the
human race and its concomitant tribes. The waters of
the seas and oceans, lifted up from their beds by this
immense perturbation, swept over the continents with
irresistible force, destroying instantaneously the entire
flora and fauna of the last tertiary period, and burying
its ruins in the sedimentary deposits which ensued. . . .
When the seas had settled into their new beds, and the
outlines of the land were permanently defined, the
latest and greatest act of creation was accomplished by
clothing the earth with the vegetation which now
covers it, peopling the land and the water with the
animal tribes which now exist, and calling into being
the human race. . . . The most conspicuous condition
which distinguishes the present from all past periods is
the existence of the human race among its fauna, the
attributes of which are so peculiar as to place it out of
all analogy with the other classes of animals. Another
striking physical difference between the present and
all former periods consists in the different divisions of
the earth's surface into climatological zones, each zone
having its peculiar fauna and flora. In all former ages
and periods, including those which immediately pre-
ceded the present, no traces of climatic difference have
been found."* In all this there is nothing inconsistent
with the Mosaic statement. There is one most striking
and extraordinary coincidence : Moses represents the
earth as existing for a long period before the sun be-
came its source of light and heat. During that period
there could have been no climatic difference, as this
depends upon the position of the earth with reference
to the sun. JSTow this exactly agrees with the conclu-
sions of geology, which asserts, as we have seen, that
before the human period there was no difference of
climate, that the earth was not dependent on the sun

* Lardner's ' Popular Geology,' §§ 553, 555, 561.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 253

for its temperature, that there was apparently one uni-
form high temperature over the whole earth, and con-
sequently that the flora and fauna of warm climates are
found, in the prehuman period, in latitudes where they
could not now exist. Here then is an instance of the
extraordinary scientific accuracy of the Mosaic ac-
count.

14. Another objection to Scriptural cosmogony is,
that the Bible asserts that the earth is immovable.
aThe Hebrew records, the basis of religious truth,
manifestly countenanced the opinion of the earth's im-
mobility." * The proofs of this proposition are not
taken from Moses, who says nothing on the subject, but
from such pages as Ps. xciii. 1, — " The world also is
established that it cannot be moved ; " and Ps. civ. 5,
— " Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should
not be moved forever." See also Ps. cxix. 90, 91. Ac-
cording to this mode of interpretation, it can also be
proved that the Hebrews also held that a pious man
was an immovable fixture ; for it is said, Prov. x.
30, "The righteous shall never be moved," the same
word in Hebrew. But this objection rests on simple
ignorance of the Hebrew word translated "moved."
This word, Mot (2^), signifies, as Gesenius says, " to
waver, to shake, to totter," and, therefore, it is applied
to the feet of one in motion in Ps. xvii. 5, — " Hold up
my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not ; " or,
as the margin has it, " be not moved." Can any one
be found so silly as to suppose that David prayed that
his feet might be immovably fixed ? The whole prayer
implies motion, walking in the Lord's ways ; and the
latter part of the petition is that his feet might not
" totter," that he might not stumble. So far, therefore,
are the above passages from declaring that the earth is
immovable, that they necessarily imply its motion.
"The world is established that it cannot totter," not
even in that velocity of motion with which it compasses
the sun. A totter, a slip, would be of dreadful conse-

* ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 208. See also Hitchcock's ' Religion of Geol-
ogy/ PD- 25 and 43.

254 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay V.

quence to its inhabitants ; but the Lord has so arranged
and steadied its motions, that no totter is possible.
The wonderful mode of its suspension in space, as well
as that of the heavenly bodies, as necessarily implied in
the Scriptural doctrine of an ethereal expanse, is also
beautifully expressed in Job xxvi. 7. " He stretcheth
out the north over the empty place ; he hangeth the
earth upon nothing." To infer that Scripture teaches
the immobility of the earth because it speaks of sunrise
and sunset, or because Joshua said, " Sun, stand, thou
still,'Ms just as fair as to attribute the same error to the
compilers of almanacks and astronomical tables, or to
scientific men in their common parlance. There are
certain popular phrases which no universality of sci-
ence will ever banish from general use. The great his-
torian of the Inductive Sciences, like all other people
of common sense, uses the popular language. " The mo-
tions of the sun, the succession of the places of his ris-
ing and setting at different times of the year, the great-
est height which he reaches .... would all exhibit
several cycles. . . . The turning lack of the sun, when
he had reached his greatest distance to the south or the
north, as shown either by his rising or his height at
noon, wTould perhaps be the most observable of such
circumstances." * If Copernicus himself had been in
a similar position with that of Joshua, he would have
used just the same language. To the end of time the
most scientific of men will continue to speak of sunrise
and sunset — the sun passing the meridian, or sinking
below the horizon ; and he who would try to substitute
a more exact phraseology would be regarded as more
of a pedant than a philosopher.

15. Verses 6-S. — The Mosaic firmament not a
solid vault. — In close connection with this objection is
that directed against the Mosaic account of " the fir-
mament." It wTas already urged by Yoltaire, and in
recent times oft triumphantly repeated, to show the
supposed ignorance and gross conceptions of the He-
brew people. Gesenius, Winer, Knobel, &c., have

* Vol. i. p. 127.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 255

patronized it ; their statements have been transferred
wholesale into popular English works, and lately re-
peated in " Essays and Beviews" (pp. 219, 220) :— "The
work of the second day of creation is to erect the vault
of heaven (Heb., rakia ; Gr. arepeco/xa ; Lai, firmamen-
tum), which is represented as supporting an ocean of
water above it. The waters are said to be divided, so
that some are below, some above the vault. That the
Hebrews understood the sky, firmament, or heaven, to
be a permanent solid vault, as it appears to the ordi-
nary observer, is evident enough from various expres-
sions made use of concerning it. It is said to have
pillars (Job xxvi. 11), foundations (2 Sam. xxii. 8), doors
(Ps. lxxviii. 23), and windows (Gen. vii. 11). No
quibbling about the derivation of the word rakia, which
is literally ' something beaten out,' can affect the ex-
plicit description of the Mosaic writer, contained in the
words, 'The waters that are above the firmament/ or
avail to show that he was aware that the sky is but
transparent.

" Note. — The root is generally applied to express the
hammering or beating out of metal plates ; hence some-
thing beaten or spread out. It has been pretended
that the word rakia may be translated expanse^ so as
merely to mean empty space. The context sufficiently
rebuts this."

This objection, if well founded, would be conclusive
proof of the opposition between astronomic science and
the Mosaic cosmogony. But, happily, it is the weak-
est of all the objections, and the most easily refuted by
Scripture statement, and by the history of interpre-
tation. "The Hebrews," says Mr. Goodwin, "under-
stood the sky, firmament, or heaven to be a permanent
solid vault." Here are two assertions : First, that the
Hebrews understood the firmament or heaven to be a
vault. Secondly, that they regarded that vault as
solid. The first assertion, a repetition of Gesenius's
hemisphmrii instar, is totally without foundation. The
word rakia signifies not vault, but, as all allow, an ex-
panse, something spread out, whether solid or unsolid.

256 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

and therefore incompatible with the idea of vault or
arch. But the main part of the objection is that the
firmament, or heavens, are solid or firm. Now, ac-
cording to Scripture, the firmament, or heaven, is that
space or place where birds fly. They could not fly in
a solid vault ; therefore the firmament cannot be a solid
vault. This is proved by the following references. In
Gen. i. 28, birds are called " the fowl of the heavens "
(not " air," as the Authorized Version has it) — a de-
scription utterly inapplicable if the heavens be a per-
manent solid vault, in which the heavenly bodies were
fixed. " The fowl of the solid vault " would be non-
sense. If the heavens be the expanse, beginning at
the earth, extending to the stars, and including the air,
the description is appropriate ; and so convinced were
our translators that the heavens have this meaning, that
they have here and elsewhere translated " fowl of the
air," not "fowl of the heavens." The reason why
Moses calls birds fowls of the heavens is because they
fly in the heavens, as we read, Deut. iv. 12, "any
winged fowl that flieth in the heavens." And again,
Prov. xxx. 19, " The way of an eagle in the heavens."
And again, Jer. viii. 7, "The stork in the heavens
knoweth his appointed time." In all these passages,
" heavens " means the place where birds fly.* ' In
Psalm lxxviii. 36, the word means the place where
winds blow — "He causeth a wind to blow in the
heavens ; " in both cases the region of the atmosphere.
The Biblical writers must, therefore, have considered
the heavens or firmament as something analogous to the
air, an expanse, or ether, not a hard solid vault.

The idea of expanse, independent, or even exclusive
of solidity, is also to be inferred, from the manner in
which other verbs f simply signifying to extend or
spread out, are applied to the heavens : as, for instance,
Isaiah xlviii. 13, "My right hand hath spread out (tip-
pechah) the heavens." Isaiah xl. 22, " That stretcheth

* These passages also give the true meaning of the words in Genesis i.
80, where the Authorized Version has, " In the open firmament of heaven,"
literally, "upon the face of the firmament of heaven."

+ The verbs HS3 Natah, HAH Mathach, and HDD Taphach.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 257

out (noteli) tlie heavens like a curtain (literally, like
fineness), and spreadeth them out (vaiyimtach) as a
tent to dwell in. The comparison to a tent does not
suggest solidity — the comparison with a fine curtain
excludes it. the Hebrew word (Dok) here used for
curtain, is cognate with Dak, "fine dust," and signifies,
as Gesenius says, " Fineness — hence fine cloth, a gar-
ment, a curtain." The same idea of something unsolid,
impermanent, and movable, is conveyed in the similar
figure, Ps. civ. 2, " Who stretchest out the heavens like
a curtain [Yerihah]." The Hebrew word here used
for curtain means "something tremulous," and, as
Gesenius gives it, " a curtain, hanging, so called from
its tremulous motion " — a simile most unsuitable for a
solid vault, most appropriate for an ethereal expanse or
fluid.

But besides Eakia and Shamaim, there is another
word, Shechakim, said to be used sometimes for heav-
ens, which also excludes the idea of solidity. Gesenius
thus gives the meaning: "ptttf. 1- Dust, fine dust.
Isai. xl. 15 ; 2. A cloud, Arab, thin cloud, pp., as it
would seem, cloud of dust, or the like. Mostly in plu-
ral, clouds. Metonym. for the firmament, the heavens,
the sky, i. q. t=?»ia and s^pn, comp. in English the clouds.
Job xxxv ii. 18, ' Hast thou like him spread out the sky
(t=^rr:3), which is firm like a molten looking-glass ■/"
A cloud of dust is nothing solid, and, therefore, when
the wrord Shachak, signifying cloud of dust, is trans-
ferred to the clouds of heaven, it implies that, in the
mind of him that transferred it, the clouds of heaven
are also devoid of solidity. But here it will be replied,
In the passage of Job, just referred to by Gesenius,
" the sky " is compared to a molten metallic mirror —
it must, therefore, be firm, like a metal plate. Now,
granting for a moment that " sky " is here a possible
translation, the conclusion drawn does not follow. If
the sky be solid and firm, and able to bear up a whole
heavenly ocean of water, is it not rather a descent from
the poetic, indeed a very considerable bathos, to com-
pare its strength to that of a woman's metal mirror?

258 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

The beauty of the simile is lost. Luther's poetic mind
and shrewd common sense saw this, and, therefore,
when there was no dispute about the matter, showed
that here there is a contrast rather than a comparison.
The expanse, he says, is rarer and finer than the atmos-
phere in which we live, and yet, through the power of
the Divine word, strong as if it were metal.*

Take into account the exact meaning of ShcchaMm,
clouds, or substances unsolid as a cloud of dust, and the
beauty and force of the figure come out still more
strongly. When, therefore, it is remembered that " the
Hebrews" regarded the heavens or firmament as in-
cluding the place where birds fly — that they liken it to
fineness or fine cloth, that they regard it as tremulous,
like a tremulous curtain, and thought that it was of the
nature of the clouds, tza^pruB, and that the clouds were
of the nature of a cloud of fine dust, and might be called
by the same word, it will be seen that they did not con-
sider the heavens as a solid vault, but as an ether sim-
ilar to the atmosphere.

That the word Rdkia signifies expanse is also proved
by Jewish tradition. It is that sense which appears
when the Jews began to write lexicons and grammars,
and is preserved to this da}\ David Kimchi, in his
Book of Roots, explains the word Rakali first by Paras,
to spread out, and he is followed by both Spanish and
German Jews, who translate Rakia expanse.

The Jewish-Spanish version has " Espandidura ; "
the Jewish-German " Ausspreitung ; " the Pentateuch
by Zunz, Arnheim, and Sachs gives " Ausdehnung."
The ' Jewish School and Family Bible,' by Dr. Benisch,
has " expanse." At the revival of letters Christians
learned Hebrew from the Jews, and received the old
Jewish interpretation " expanse." So Yatablus and
Peter Martyr have " Sit expansio in medio aquarum."
Calvin has both cxtensio and expansio — " Sit extensio in
medio aquarum . . . . et fecit Dens expansionem ; " and
so Sebastian Mnnster, Mercerus, the Geneva French
Bible of 15SS, Luke Osiander, 1597, and Cypriano de

* See the passage quoted below, p. 250.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC KECOED OF CEEATION. 059

Valera, 1602, who has " Sea un estendimiento en medio
de las aguas." And Luther, though he retained the
word " Veste," answering to " firmament," explains it
as a line and subtile expanse. In his Commentary to
verse 6, he says, " God takes this thick and shapeless
lump of vapour, nebel (nebula), created the first day out

of nothing, and commands it to spread itself out

for the word JRahia signifies among the Hebrews some-
thing extended and spread out, and comes from Raka,
to spread out .... when, therefore, Job says, xxxvii.
18, 'The heavens are made firm as with iron,' he has
respect not to the material, but to the Word, which can
make the softest thing in nature into the strongest and

the firmest for we know how subtile the air is in

which we live. . . . But the heaven is naturally still
more subtile and thin." * Vatablns gives a similar ex-
planation. Having remarked that heaven is by the
Hebrews sometimes called Shamaim, sometimes Rdkia^
he says, " It is distinguished into two parts, the upper
part, which is called ether, which is fire, and the lower
part, which is called air." Calvin {in loc.) gives a sim-
ilar interpretation. " Moreover, the word Rakia com-
prehends not only the whole region of the air, but what-
ever is open above us, as the word heaven is sometimes
understood by the Latins." Now, it is to be remarked
that these interpretations were given when the old sys-
tem of astronomy was still in fashion, and received by
those who give these interpretations, as the Jewish
Rabbis and the Reformers. They cannot therefore be
accused of quibbling, or of advocating a new interpre-
tation to help them out of difficulties arising from the
discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo. This sense con-
tinued to be received by Hebrew scholars until the in-
fection of Deistic infidelity fully influenced the minds
of men to make out a case of ignorance against Moses
and the Hebrews. It is found in Mariana, 1621 ; Hot-
tinger, 1659 ; Seb. Schmidt, 1697 ; Baumgarten and
Rom. Teller, 1719; J. C. F. Schultz, 1783; Dathius,
1791 ; Ilgen, 1798. Even in the first edition of Gesen-

* Luther's ' Werkc' Walch. vol. i.

260 AIDS T0 FAITH. [EssatV.

ias's ' Lexicon,1 1S10-13, though he says that the He-
brews looked upon heaven as solid, he explains rakia,
not as a solid expanse, but " Etwas ausgebreitetes." In
later editions he wavers, sometimes inserting, sometimes
omitting, the word " solid " or " firm." *

But, it may be asked, if such be the Jewish tradi-
tion, how the LXX. and Vulgate came to render Rakia
by arepecofjia, firmament um. The answer is, that by
a-Tepeco/ia the LXX. also understood a fine and subtile
ether which held the heavenly bodies in their places.
Stereoma was chosen not to express something itself
solid, but something that strengthened or made firm
the heavenly bodies. They took the word in the tran-
sitive sense, like fiefiaLcofia, SrjXcopLa, ifXjjpcofia, &c. ; and
this is proved by the Vulgate having firmamentum,
which form of word signifies something that makes
firm, like ornamentum, corrvplementum, alimentum, mon-
umentum, &c. In this sense stereoma is elsewhere
used by the LXX., as Ezek. iv. 16 : "I will break the
staff of bread, arepewfia aprov ; " and Esther ix. 29 :
"And the confirmation of the letter, to re a-Tepecopia t?}?
iTrurrdkrfi" And again Ps. xviii. 3 : " The Lord is my
rock, arepeco/ia /aov" where the Vulgate has firmamen-
tuin meum. That Jerome took firmamentum in the
same sense appears from his Commentary on Isa. xxvi.
1, where for bn, bulwark, Symmachus has o-repiofia ;
and Jerome remarks : " Pro eo quod nos vertimus ante-
murale, Symmachus firmamentum interpretatus est."
And again on Ezek. iv. 16, on the words " staff of bread : "
" Verbum Hebraicum ikfo^A prima Aquilae editio bacu-
lum, secunda et Symmachus Theodotioque arepecofia, id

* In the ' German Manual' of 1823, in the verb 2p we find—" (1) Stam-

pfen mit den Ftissen. . . . (2) Stampfen, breitschlagen, daher (3)Ausbreiten,

aber nur von festen Kijrpern. . . . Im Syr. befestigen, gri'inden." In the
Latin edition of 1833 it is not found. In Robinson's translation, the word
" solid" is found in the substantive, but not in the verb. The reference to

the Syriac shows that the idea " firm" is not included : Syr. ^.o.} — firmavit,

stabilivit, Aph. fundavit, pertundendo et constipando firmavit, ut facere
solent, qui fundamenta, sedium jaciunt." According to this, and Gesenius is
right, the Syriac word does not mean to beat out or ram something that is
solid or firm, but by ramming or beating to make firm that which was not
firm before.

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 261

est firmamcni'iim interpretati sunt." The Septnagint
adopted the word, as Le Clerc has shown in his Commen-
tary, from the Oriental or Chaldaic philosophy : "Hinc
coelos ^^P^jRekihin, et ut loquuntur Graeci eorum inter-
pretes, arepico/xa, quod inferiora com-primerent acfir-
marent, deosque prsesides uniuscuj usque cceli 'Avo^e!?
et 2vvox&> sustentatores et coactores appellabant." He
refers in proof to a passage in Thomas Stanley's 'His-
tory of Philosophy,' in which, though that writer calls
stereoma a solid orb, yet he shows that this stereoma
was of a nature of an ethereal fluid : * " The first of the
corporeal worlds is the empyreal (by Empyrseum the
Chaldseans understood not, as the Christian theologists,
the seat of God and the blessed spirits, which is rather
analogous to the supreme light of the Chaldseans, but
the outward sphere of the corporeal world). It is round
in figure, according to the oracle, ' enclosing heaven in
a round figure.' It is also a solid orb, or firmament ;
for the same oracles call it arepecoLia. It consists of
fire, whence named the Empyreal, or as the oracles,
the fiery world, which fire, being immediately next the
incorporeal supramundane light, is the rarest and sub-
tlest of bodies, and, by reason of this subtilty, pen-
etrates into the aether, which is the next world below
it, and, by mediation of the aether, through all the ma-
terial world.

" Chap. xiv. — The aether is a fire (as its name im-
plies) less subtile than the empyrseum ; for the empy-
rseum penetrates through the aether ; yet is the aether
itself so subtile that it penetrates through the material
world. The second aethereal world is the sphere of
fixed stars. . . . The third aethereal world is that of the
planetary orb, which contains the sun, moon, and
planets."

According, then, to this meaning of stereoma the
word gives no countenance to the idea that the firma-
ment is a solid vault, capable of sustaining an ocean of
water above it. On the contrary, it conveys the idea

* 'History of Philosophy,' by Thomas Stanley. Chaldaick Philosophy,
chap. xiii.

2(32 A1DS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

of a fine, subtile fluid pervading space, and agrees,
therefore, with the Biblical usage, which makes it an
expanse extending from the earth to the heavenly
bodies, including the airy space in which birds fly.

Having thus shown, from the usage of the Biblical
writers, the uniformity of the Jewish tradition and the
LXX., that the meaning of fiakia is an expanse, not a
solid vault, the fiction of " an ocean of water above it"
falls of itself. That rests upon the supposition of a
"permanent solid vault," and is altogether incompatible
with the true meaning of an ethereal expanse. But in-
dependently of this incompatibility, the theory of " an
ocean" above the firmament is a mere fiction. There is
not one word about it in the Bible. The sacred text
says that the firmament was to separate the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament. It also relates the gathering to-
gether of the waters under the firmament and the for-
mation of the ocean, but it says not t>ne word about the
oratherino: together of the waters above the firmament
into an ocean or reservoir; that is pure invention ot
those who wish to burden upon " the Hebrews" what
they are entirely innocent of. Indeed it is admitted by
Gesenius and others, though not noticed by the Essay-
ist, that the Hebrews knew better, and were acquainted
with the true origin of rain. Gesenius says that the
Hebrew poets describe a firmament, " Super quo ocea-
nus ccelestis existat, apertis firmamenti cancellis pluvi-
ara demittens in terrain (Gen. i. 7, vii. 11 ; Ps. civ. 3 ;
cxlviii. 4) vulgarem nimirum intuitionem secuti, licet
vera rernm ratio iis minime incognita sit." (Yide Gen.
ii. 6 ; Job xxxvi. 27, 28.) He does not ascribe the fic-
tion of an ocean to the Hebrews generally, but only to
the poets following popular notions. It is therefore un-
fair to charge it upon " a Hebrew Descartes," who must
have been up to the science of the day.

But it is said that the Hebrews believed that heaven
had pillars and foundations, that there Avere windows
and doors in heaven, on the opening of which the rain
descended. With equal reason might these wise inter-

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC KECOKD OF CREATION. 263

preters say that the Hebrews believed that there were
bottles in heaven, and that the celestial ocean, or part
of it, was first bottled off before the earth could be sup-
plied with rain, or that " the waters are bound up in a
garment5' (Prov. xxx. 4), or that the ocean has bars and
doors (Job xxxviii. 10, 17), or that the shadow of death
and the womb have doors (Job iii. 10), for all these are
spoken of. If these are figurative, so are the windows
and doors of heaven. As in Job xxxviii. 37, "Who
can number the clouds in wisdom ? or who can stay the
bottles of heaven?" bottles are parallel to and explained
by " clouds ; " so in Ps. Ixxviii. 23, there is a similar
explanatory parallelism — " Though He had commanded
the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heav-
en ; " and few children in a Sunday or National school
would take bottles or doors literally. The common
people are not so dull as Gesenius and some other intel-
lectual wonders of the day think. Who ever met a
rustic, accustomed to look at the heavens, who thought
it was a solid vault, and that the stars were fixed in
like nails ? The common people are not so silly : they
judge by what they see. They do not see a solid vault,
but they see the lark and the eagle soaring aloft in the
air, and they think that all beyond is just alike. They
never dream of a solid obstacle in the way. That solid
vault savours much more of the fancy of the poet add-
ing a trait of grandeur to a description, or of the school
of the philosopher inventing a theory to account for the
motions of the heavenly bodies, than of the practical
common sense of the common people. The most uned-
ucated know very well the connexion between clouds
and rain, and in this the Hebrews were not behind other
people. The two passages pointed out by Gesenius —
Gen. ii. 6, and Job. xxxvi. 27, 28 — prove that the He-
brews knew the connexion between evaporation and
rain, especially the latter. " For he maketh small the
drops of water ; they pour clown rain according to the
vapour thereof, which the clouds do drop and distil
upon man abundantly." The Hebrew language has va-
rious words for " cloud " or " clouds " ; they are all

2(34 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Ess at V.

found in connexion with rain. Thus, Gen. ix. : " When
I bring a cloud, "ji?, over the earth, my bow shall be
seen in the cloud." The clouds might excite apprehen-
sion of another deluge ; the bow dispels it. Deborah
was able to tell how, when the Lord went out of Seir,
" the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped (dis-
tilled) ; the clouds, aw, also dropped water." (Judges
v. 4.) In 1 Kings xviii. 44, 45, the little cloud, a?, rising
from the sea, was recognized by Elijah as a sign of com-
ing rain ; and when the heavens were black with clouds
and wind, " a great rain" followed. Solomon says
(Prov. iii. 20), " By his knowledge the depths are bro-
ken up, and the clouds, b-'pnsj, drop down dew," which
reads very like a commentary upon Gen. vii. 11, "the
fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the
windows of heaven were opened." These are only a
few specimens of the many passages that bear upon the
subject; but sufficient to show that "the Hebrews"
knew very well that rain did not come from a celestial
ocean, through windows and doors, nor yet from bottles
in the heavens, but from the clouds. Indeed, the con-
nexion between the two furnished materials for the
proverb, " Clouds, awiM, and wind, and no rain ; such
is the man whose promise of a gift is a lie." (Prov.
xxv. 14.)

But though there be no ocean above the firmament,
may there not have been, may there not still be, waters
above the firmament? Such was the opinion of the
learned F. Yon Meyer, adopted by Kurtz in his first
edition of 'Bible and Astronomy,' and lately advo-
cated by Delitsch. That such a supposition is not un-
scientific, appears from Dr. WhewelPs ' Theory of the
Solar System': — "The planets exterior to Mars, Ju-
piter and Saturn especially, as the best known of them,
appear, by the best judgment which we can form, to be
spheres of water and of aqueous vapour, combined, it
may be, with atmospheric air . . . Can we see any
physical reason for the fact , which appears to us prob-
able, that all the water and vapour of the system is
gathered in its outward parts ? It would seem that we

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CREATION. 265

can. "Water and aqueous vapour are driven off and
retained at a distance by any other source of heat. . . .
It was, then, agreeable to the general scheme, that the
excess of water and vapour should be packed into ro-
tating masses, such as are Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus
and Neptune. . . . And thus the vapour, which would
otherwise have wandered loose about the atmosphere,
was neatly wound into balls, which again were kept in
their due place by being made to revolve in nearly cir-
cular orbits about the sun." Perhaps, when science
knows a little more about the ethereal medium which
fills space, and in which the heavenly bodies move, it
may also learn something more about " this water and
aqueous vapour," and be better able to understand the
Mosaic statement about the waters above the firma-
ment. But, however that be, Biblical usage, Jewish
tradition, the reason that moved the LXX. to adopt
stereo7na, and the Yulgate firmamentum, the current
of Protestant interpretation until a recent date, concur
in proving that "the Hebrews" did not believe in a
solid heaven, like the brass or iron heaven of the hea-
thens, but in an expanse of something like the atmos-
pheric air.* This is not contrary, but rather agreeable
to the discoveries of modern science, which attributes
the retardation of the heavenly bodies to some resisting
medium, and light to the undulations of some subtile
fiuid.

1G. Verse 27. Creation of one human "pair. — This
subject has been so fully discussed by Prichard that it
is not necessary to enter upon it here.f It may be

* The threat, Levit. xxvi. 10, " I will make your heaven like the iron, and
your earth like the brass," also shows that the Hebrews as little looked upon
the heavens as hard and solid, as they believed the earth to be brass.

+ Prichard sums up his argument thus : — " On the whole it appears that
the information deduced from this fourth method of inquiry is as satisfactory
as we could expect, and is sufficient to confirm, and indeed by itself to
establish, the inference that the human kind contains but one species, and
therefore, by a second inference, but one race. It will, I apprehend, be al-
lowed by those who have attentively followed this investigation of particulars,
that the diversities in physical character belonging to different races present
no material obstacle to the opinion that all nations sprang from one original,
a result which plainly follows from the foregoing consideration." (' Re-
searches into the Physical History of Mankind,' by James Cowles Prichard,
M.D., vol. ii. p. 589.)
12

266 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essat V.

well, however, to notice a statement in ' Essays and
Reviews' which says that the original formation of only
one pair of human beings is taught only in the second
chapter, and not in the first. " Man is said to have
been created male and female, and the narrative con-
tains nothing to show that a single pair only is in-
tended." * "It is in the second narrative of creation
that the formation of a single man out of the dust of
the earth is described, and the omission to create a fe-
male at the same time is stated to have been repaired
by the subsequent formation of one from the side of
the man." — Note in 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 222.
But the text in Gen. i., if carefully examined, proves
that only one pair of human beings is intended, and
that the formation of the two was not simultaneous.
In verse 26 we read, " And God said, Let us make man
(Adam without article) in our image, after our like-
ness, and let them have dominion," etc. Here the lan-
guage is indefinite. It refers to the whole human race.
But then follows, "And God created the man (Adam,
with the article) in his image, in the image of God
created He him : male and female created He them."
Here the language is definite, " the man," and in the
first half of the verse the pronoun is in the singular
number, and the masculine gender, " In the image of
God created He him." If the author had intended
briefly to have stated that at first only one human be-
ing, and that one the male, was created, what other
language could he have employed? Then, having
spoken in the singular number, and the masculine gen-
der, he as briefly but clearly describes the subsequent
distinction into sexes. " Male and female created He
them." The plan of this chapter forbade his entering
into the detail of the creation of woman, just as much
as it hindered him from describing the varieties of
herbs or trees, or fowls or fishes, or of beasts of the
earth and cattle. As he merely says that God created
them, so here, after the mention of " the man, " he
just notices the fact that God created them male and

* Cf. ' Essays and Reviews.'

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOltD OF CEEATION. 267

female ; but in that very notice lie implies that there is
something peculiar, for with regard to h'sh or beasts or
cattle helloes not mention that'God created them male
and female, or, as it may be rendered, " a male and a
female." With regard to man, short as is the notice,
he does relate, first, that " in the image of God created
He him," that is, one male ; and then " male and fe-
male created He them." Even according to the opin-
ion of those who make the first and second chapters
of Genesis two accounts, written by two authors, the
fifth chapter was written by the author who wrote
the first chapter (the Elohist, as they say). But in the
fifth chapter the creation of one pair only is plainly
implied. " This is the book of the generations of Adam.
In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of
God created He him ; male and female created He
them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam,
in the day when they were created. And Adam lived
an hundred and thirty years," etc. In all this Adam
is one person, and yet the first and second verses are a
recapitulation of chapter i. 26, 27, in the very words
of those verses. Therefore in i. 27, the author took
Adam as one individual male human being, as Knobel
fairly admits in his commentary on chap. v. 1-5 : —

" Adam is here a proper name, as iii. 17 The

author designedly repeats the statements of i. 27, 28, as
his purpose is here to narrate how the first human pair
propagated the species by generation, and brought forth
children of the same form which they themselves had

received at the creation from God The passage

teaches that the Elohist, who here attributes to his
Adam the begetting of a son in his 130th year, also
believed in one first human pair, though in i. 26 he had
not plainly said so."

On this point, therefore, there is no discrepancy
between the first and second chapters. The first chap-
ter, as is proved by v. 26, 27, relates, first, the creation
of Adam, and then mentions the distinction of male and
female. The second chapter gives the particulars, first,
of the creation of Adam, then of the creation of Eve.

268 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay V.

17. Thus a comparison of the actual statements of
Moses with the discoveries and conclusions of modern
science is so far from shaking, that it confirms our faith
in the accuracy of the sacred narrative. We are as-
tonished to see how the Hebrew Prophet, in his brief
and rapid outline sketched 3000 years ago, has antici-
pated some of the most wonderful of recent discoveries,
and can ascribe the accuracy of his statements and lan-
guage to nothing but inspiration. Moses relates how
God created the heavens and the earth at an indefinitely
remote period before the earth was the habitation of
man — geology has lately discovered the existence of a
long prehuman period. A comparison with other scrip-
tures shows that the " heavens " of Moses include the
abode of angels, and the place of the fixed stars, which
existed before the earth. Astronomy points out remote
worlds, whose light began its journey long before the
existence of man. Moses declares that the earth was
or became covered with water, and was desolate and
empty. Geology has found by investigation that the
primitive globe was covered with an uniform ocean,
and that there was a long azoic period, during which
neither plant nor animal could live. Moses states that
there was a time when the earth was not dependent
upon the sun for light or heat,when, therefore, there could
be no climatic differences. Geology has lately verified
this statement by finding tropical plants and animals
scattered over all parts of the earth. Moses affirms
that the sun, as well as the moon, is only a light-holder.
Astronomy declares that the sun itself is a non-luminous
body, dependent for its light on a luminous atmosphere.
Moses asserts that the earth existed before the sun was
given as a luminary. Modern science proposes a theory
which explains how this was possible. Moses asserts
that there is an expanse extending from earth to dis-
tant heights, in which the heavenly bodies are placed.
Recent discoveries lead to the supposition of some sub-
tile fluid medium in which they move. Moses de-
scribes the process of creation as gradual, and mentions
the order in which living things appeared, plants, fishes,

Essay V.] THE MOSAIC EECOED OF CEEATION. 269

fowls, land-animals, man. By the study of nature geol-
ogy lias arrived independently at the same conclusion.
Where did Moses get all this knowledge ? How was it
that he worded his rapid sketch with such scientific
accuracy? If he in his day possessed the knowledge
which genius and science have attained only recently,
that knowledge is superhuman. If he did not possess
the knowledge, then his pen must have been guided by
superhuman wisdom. Faith has, therefore, nothing to
fear from science. So far the records of nature, fairly
studied and rightly interpreted, have proved the most
valuable and satisfying of all commentaries upon the
statements of Scripture. The ages required for geo-
logical development, the infinity of worlds and the im-
mensity of space revealed by astronomy, illustrate, as
no other note or comment has ever done, the Scripture
doctrines of the eternity, the omnipotence, the wisdom
of the Creator. Let then Science pursue her boundless
course, and multiply her discoveries in the heavens
and in the earth. The believer is persuaded that they
wTill only show more clearly that " the words of the
Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of
fire, purified seven times." Let Criticism also continue
her profoundly interesting and important wTork. Let
her explore, sift, analyse, scrutinize, with all her pow-
ers, the documents, language, and contents of Scripture,
and honestly tell us the results. Since the day when
Laurentius Yalla exposed the fiction of the Imperial
donation, she has contributed much to the removal of
error, and the advancement of literary, patristic, and
historic truth ; and Divine revelation has also been
illustrated by her labours. It might be shown that
even the hostile and sceptical have involuntarily helped
in the confirmation of the Christian verity, and that
even their labours cannot be neglected without loss.
But the student must carefully distinguish between the
speculations of individuals and the ascertained, settled
results of criticism. The theory of any one individual,
however learned, laborious, and genial, is only an opin-
ion, perhaps only one of a chaos of conflicting opinions,

2hq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay V.

where sound criticism has found no sure footing. The
settled results are those which, after severe testing, have
been unanimously accepted by the competent, the
sober, and the judicious. The former may be popular
for *i while, and seem to shake the faith ; but they are
gradually overthrown by the progress of critical in-
vestigation, and take their place in the record of things
that were. The history of the last hundred years, since
modern criticism took its rise, is sufficient to quiet the
believer's mind as to the ultimate result. It tells of
theory after theory, propounded by the critics of the
day, first applauded, then controverted, then rejected,
just like the philosophic systems of the same period,
and yet a gradual advance from anti-Christian hostility
to an effort after scientific impartiality, and a large
amount of positive gain for the right interpretation of
Scripture and the confirmation of the old Christian
belief. Faith, therefore, feels no more fear of Criticism
than of Science, being assured that neither can " do
anything against the truth, but for the truth."

ESSAY VI.

ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE
PENTATEUCH.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY VI.

1. Historic character of Christianity-

attacks upon it — grounds of the at-
tacks lie in speculation rather than
in discovery.

2. The Pentateuch especially assailed—

object of the paper, to defend (a)
the genuineness of the Pentateuch,
an (£*) its authenticity.

3. First argument in favour of the gen-

uineness, the fact that the -work has
come to us under the name of Mo-
ses.

4. Second argument, from the archaic

character of the narrative and of the
language.

5. Third argument, from the intimate

acquaintance with Egypt shown by
the author.

6. Fourth argument, from the knowl-

edge which he displays of the Sina-
itic peninsula and of the old races
inhabiting Canaan.

7. Fifth argument, from the fact that

the Pentateuch professes to be the
work of Moses— the fact admitted
by Eationalists.

8. Sixth argument, from the uniform

and consistent witness of the ear-
liest Jewish writers.

9. Seventh argument, from the testi-

mony of the Heathen.

10. Objection of DeWette, from the liter-

ary perfection of the work, answer-
ed—Perfection not so great as sup-
posed— Actual literary merit not
very surprising.

11. Objection from particular passages,

said to imply a later date — First an-
swer.

12. Second answer.

13. Objection from the supposed intro-

duction of the Levitical system at a
time long subsequent to Moses —
Grounds of the objection disproved.

14. Mosaic authorship not having been

disproved, no need to examine the
other theories of the authorship —
number of such theories very great.

15. Importance of proving the genuine-

ness.

16. Explanation of the exact sense in

which it is maintained that Moses
was the author of the Pentateuch.

17. Authenticity of the Pentateuch as-

sailed on six principal points. — I.
The Chronology, which is regarded
as too narrow — (a) on account of
the supposed early foundation of a
monarchy in Egypt — (6) on account
of the time requisite for the forma-
tion of language. Examination of
these two arguments. — II. The Flood
thought to have been partial, from
the absence of a universal tradition
of it— The tradition proved to be, in
one sense, universal.— III. The Eth-
nology of Gen. x. regarded as incor-
rect—Proofs of its correctness on
the points to which exception has
been taken.— IV. The early chapters
of Genesis regarded as mythic— (rt)
on account of the resemblance of
the two genealogies of the Cain-
ites and the Sethites— (b) on ac-
count of the significance of the names
employed— (c) on account of the fact
that the early history of other
nations uniformly runs up into
myth — Examination of these argu-
ments.—V. The longevity of the
Patriarchs considered' to be impos-
sible— Possibility not denied by
physiology— Fact of longevity strong-
ly attested by history.— VI. The
time assigned to the sojourn in
Egypt supposed to be incorrect— (a)
as being insufficient for the immense
increase in the numbers of the Isra-
elites—(&) as being exactly double
of the preceding period — Examina-
tion of these arguments.
IS. Summary.

ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHEN-
TICITY OE THE PENTATEUCH.

Ao/cet olv TrAeToj/ 1) rb ifiy.i(rv rod wavrbs efoai ?; apxV — Aristotle.

1. Christianity is an historic religion. It claims
to be a reasonable belief; but it does not base itself
upon Reason. Its foundation is laid on the rock of
Fact. God's actual dealings with the world from its
creation to the full establishment of the Christian
Church constitute its subject matter, and form the
ground out of which its doctrines spring. The mystic
spirit, which, despising the grossness and materiality
of facts, seeks to form to itself a sublimated and ideal-
ized religion in which events and occurrences shall
have no place, leaves the fixed and stable land to float
off upon an interminable ocean of shifting and chang-
ing fancies, substituting in reality for the truth of God
the mere thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the indi-
vidual. If we are to maintain a Faith worthy of the
name, we must plant our feet firmly on the solid ground
of historic fact, and not allow ourselves to be shaken
from that ground by unproved assertions, however
boldly made, or however often repeated. We must
give little heed to doubts, which may readily be started
in connexion with any narrative, and demand of those
who attack our belief, not mere ingenious speculations
as to the past, but proof that the authoritative account,
which has come down to us as part and parcel of our
religion, and which even they profess after a certain
sort to venerate, is devoid of literal truth, before we
follow them in their endeavours to extract from the
record some other sort of truth — not "rigidly historic"*

* Bunsen, 'Egypt's Place in Universal History ,' vol. iv. p. 383.
12*

274 Air>3 T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

— but ideal, poetic, symbolical. "We need not, we must
not, shut our eyes to any new discoveries, be they sci-
entific or historical ; but we are bound to examine the
so-called discoveries narrowly, to see exactly to what
they amount, and then to ask ourselves, " Do they pos-
itively conflict with the plain historic sense of Scrip-
ture or no ? " If they do, it will become a question
(when the presumed discovery is historical) of relative
credibility. The witnesses contradict one another —
which of them shall we believe ? But more often it
will be found that there is no such contradiction — that
all which the discoveries have established, is compati-
ble with the Scriptural narrative, and that the contra-
diction arises only where the conjectures and hypothe-
ses of speculative minds have been superadded to the
facts with which they profess to deal. Where this is
the case, there need be no hesitation. " Yea, let God
be true, and every man a liar ! " Human speculations
and conjectures, once seen to be such, cannot trouble
the faith of a Christian man. Facts are stubborn things,
and rightly command our respect ; hypotheses are airy
nothings, and may safely be disregarded and despised.

2. Among the numerous attempts made to disturb
men's faith in the present day, few have seemed more
plausible, or have met with a greater amount of success,
than those which have grouped themselves about the
Pentateuch, the foundation stone on which the rest of
the Bible is built. The genuineness of the work, though
it has not lacked defenders,* has been pertinaciously
denied, both in Germany and in America ; while the
authenticity of the narrative has been assailed in vari-
ous respects. It will be the aim and object of the pres-
ent paper to show, first, that there is no sufficient reason
to doubt the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and,
secondly, that there are no sufficient historical grounds
for questioning the authenticity of the narrative.

3. It is a general rule of literary criticism that, ex-

* See especially the work of Jahn, ' Acchtheit des Pentateuchs,' and Ha
vernick's more recent ' Einleitung,' which has been translated for Clarke's
1 Theological Library.'

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 275

I cept for special reasons, books are to be assigned to the
P* j authors whose names they bear. In profane literature
this rule is considered sufficient to determine the au-
thorship of ninety-nine out of every hundred volumes
in our libraries. Most men, who write wrorks of any
importance, claim them during their lifetime ; their
claim, if undisputed, is accepted by the world at large ;
and nothing is more difficult than to change the belief,
which is thus engendered, subsequently. Every work
therefore which comes down to us as the production of
a particular author is to be accepted as his production,
unless strong grounds can be produced to the contrary.
The onus probandi lies with the person who denies the
genuineness ; and, unless the arguments adduced in
proof are very weighty, the fact of reputed authorship
ought to overpower them. Sound criticism has gener-
ally acquiesced in this canon. It raises an important
presumption in favour of the Mosaic authorship of the
]?entateuch, anterior to any proof of the fact to be de-
rived from internal evidence, or from the testimony of
those who had special opportunities of knowing.

4. The internal evidence in favour of the Mosaic
authorship is, briefly, the following : — The book is ex-
actly such a one as a writer of the age, character, and
circumstances of Moses might be expected to produce.
Its style is archaic. The reader, even of the English
version, feels that he is here brought into contact with
a greater simplicity, a more primitive cast of thought
and speech, than he meets with in any of the other
sacred writings. The life described, the ideas, the char-
acters, have about them the genuine air of primitive
antiquity. The student of the original observes that
the very words themselves, the constructions, the gram-
matical forms, bear similar traces of a remote author-
ship, being often such as had become obsolete even
before the composition of the Book of Joshua.* It is
impossible to exhibit this argument popularly in the

* See Jahn in Bengel's ' Archiv,' vol. ii., pp. 578 et seqq. ; and Fritzsche,
'Aechtheit der Bucher Mosis,' pp. 174 et seqq. Compare also Marsh's 'Au-
thenticity of the Five Books of Moses,' pp. 6 et seqq

2^ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay YI.

1

resent condition of Hebrew scholarship among us.
ts weight, however, is sufficiently shown by the pres-
sure which it has exerted upon the controversy in Ger-
many, where the opponents of the Mosaic authorship
are constrained to allow that a considerable number of
" archaisms " do in fact exist in the Pentateuch, and to
account for them by the supposition that genuine Mo-
saic documents were in the hands of its " compiler,"
from which he adopted the forms and words in ques-
tion ! * This is surely about as probable as that a mod-
ern French author, who made use of Froissart among
his materials, should adopt his spelling, and form his
sentences after his type.

5. Again, the writer shows a close acquaintance
with Egypt, its general aspect, its history, geography,
manners, customs, productions, and language, which
would be natural to one so circumstanced as Moses,
but which cannot be shown to belong naturally, or even
probably, to any later Israelite, down to the time of
Jeremiah. No doubt there was extensive commercial
and political intercourse between Egypt and Judea in
the age of Solomon, and in the later period of the Jew-
ish kingdom ; but such intercourse, even if direct (of
which we have no proof), would fail to give that exact
historic knowledge of what would then have become a
remote era, which the writer of the Pentateuch displays
at every turn in the most easy and natural manner pos-
sible. Laborious attempts have been made to invali-
date this argument ; and one writerf has gone so far as
to assert that in many respects the author of the Pen-
tateuch shows a want of acquaintance with the customs
of Egypt, such as is sufficient to prove that he was not
Moses. But this audacity has had the happy effect of
calling forth a reply, which has established beyond all
possibility of refutation the exactitude and vast extent
of the author's Egvptian knowledge, which is now
allowed on all hands. The work of Hengstenberg,
" Aegypten und Mose," must be carefully read for the

* De Wctte, « Einleitung, in d. alt. Test./ § 163. + Von Bohlen.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 277

full weight of this reasoning to be appreciated.* Its
argument does not admit of compression, since it de-
pends mainly on the multiplicity and minuteness of its
detail ; but the impression which it leaves may be stated,
' briefly, as follows : — That either a person born and bred
| in Egypt about the time of the Exodus wrote the Pen-
* tateuch, or that a writer of a later age elaborately stud-
| ied the history and antiquities of the Egyptians for the
jj purpose of imposing a forgery on his countrymen, and
| that he did this with such skill and success that not
even modern criticism, with its lynx-eyed perspicacity,
and immense knowledge of the past, can detect and
expose the fraud or point out a single place in which
the forger stumbled through ignorance.

6. To this it must be added, that the writer, who is
thus intimately acquainted with the land and people
of Egypt, is also fully aware of all the peculiar features
of the Sinaitic peninsula ; f and further (and more
especially) that he has a knowledge of the ancient con-
dition and primitive races of Canaan, which must have
been quite beyond the reach of any one who lived
much later than Moses. The Pephaim, Zuzim, Emim,
ITorim, Avim, and Anakim, who appear as powerful
races in the Pentateuch, have either perished or been
reduced to insignificance by the time of the Judges.
The writer of the Pentateuch, however, knows their
several countries, their designations in the mouths of
different nations, their cities, and the peoples by whom
they were severally conquered.^: Similarly, he ac-
quaints us with the ancient names of a number of
Oanaanitish towns, which had been superseded by fresh
titles long before the Exodus.§ All this is natural
enough, supposing that the work was composed by

* This work has been translated into English by Mr. R. D. C. Robbins, of
the Theological Seminary, Andover, United States ; and a reprint of this
translation, with additional notes, formed the third volume of Clarke's ' Bib-
lical Cabinet,' New Series (Edinburgh, 1845.)

+ Stanley, 'Sinai and Palestine,' pp.f 20-24.

X Gen. xiv. 5, 6 ; Num. xiii. 28 ; Deut. ii. 10-23.

§ As Mamre, which became first Kirjath-arba (Josh. xiv. 15), and then
Hebron ; Bela, which became Zoar (Gen* xiv. 2) ; Enmishpat, which became
Kadesh (ib. ver. 7) ; Hazezon-Tamar, which became Engedi (ib. ; compare
2 Chron. xx. 2) ; and Galeed, which became Mizpah (Gen. xxxi. 48, 49).

278 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

Moses ; but it would be very forced and artificial in a
writer of a later age, even if we could suppose such a
writer to have any means of acquiring the information.
7. Further, the Pentateuch professes to be the work
of Moses. Few books comparatively tell us by whom
they are written. Neither Joshua, nor Judges, nor
Ruth, nor the Books of Samuel, nor Kings, nor Chron-
icles, nor Esther, nor the first three Gospels, nor the
Acts, nor the ' Commentaries ' of Csesar, nor the ' An-
nals,' or ' Histories,' of Tacitus, nor the ' Hellenics ' of
Xenophon, nor Plato's ' Dialogues,' nor Aristotle's
' Philosophical Works,' nor Plutarch's ' Lives,' nor at
least nine-tenths of the other remains of ancient litera-
ture, contain within them any statements showing by
whom they were written. Authorship generally is
mere matter of notoriety ; and usually the best evi-
dence we have for it, beyond" common repute, is the
declaration of some writer, later by two or three cen-
turies, that the person to whom a given work is as-
signed, composed a book answering in its subject and
its general character to the work which we find passing
under his name. But occasionally we have evidence
of a higher order. Some writers formally name them-
selves as the authors of their works at the beginning,
or at the close, or in the course of their narrative.*
Others, without a distinct formal announcement, let us
see, by the mode or matter of their narration, who the
author is, using the first person, or mentioning facts of
which they only could be cognisant, or otherwise im-
plying, without directly asserting, their authorship.
This last is the case of the Pentateuch. The author
does not formally announce himself, but by the manner
in which he writes, implies that he is Moses. This is
so clear and palpable, that even the antagonists of the
genuineness are forced to allow it.f " The author of
the last four books," says one, " wishes to be taken for
Moses." " The writer of Deuteronomy," says another,

* As Herodotus, Thucydides, Isaiah, St. Paul, Jesus the son of Sirach, &c.

+ De Wette, * Einleitung in d. alt. Test.,' §. 162, d. ; Hartmann, ' For-
sehungen liber d. Pentateuch,' p. 538; Yon Bohlen, 'Die Genesis hist. krit.
erlaut. Einleitung,' p. xxxviii.

Essay VL] THE PENTATEUCH. 279

"would have men think that his whole book is com-
posed by Moses." They do not indeed admit the con-
clusion, that what is thus claimed and professed must
be true ; but, on the contrary, maintain that the actual
writer lived many centuries after the great Legislator.
Apparently they do not see that, if their views are
correct, the whole value of the work is lost — that it
becomes a mere impudent fraud, utterly unworthy of
credit, which cannot reasonably be attached to any
statements made by one who would seek to palm on
the world a gross and elaborate deception. If a work
has merely gone accidentally by a wrong name, the
discovery of its spuriousness need not seriously affect
its authenticity ; but if the writer has set himself to
personate another man in order to obtain for his state-
ments a weight and authority to which they would not
otherwise be entitled, the detection of the fraud car-
ries with it the invalidation of the document, by wholly .
destroying our confidence in the integrity of the author.
Modern Eationalism shrinks from these conclusions.
It would degrade the Sacred Books, but it would not
deprive them altogether of an historic character. It
still speaks of them as sacred, and as entitled to our
respect and reverence, while it saps the foundations on
which their claiui to our reverence rests, making them
at best the " pious frauds " of well-intentioned but un-
veracious religionists.

8. The external evidence of the Mosaic authorship
of the Pentateuch is allowed to be extensive ; but it is
said to be of little worth, in the first place, because the
witnesses are uncritical.* The Jews and Greeks, who,
during eighteen centuries, without a dissentient voice
ascribed the " Book of the Law " to Moses, were not
acquainted with the modern Critical Analysis, which
claims to be an infallible judge of the age, and mode
of composition, of every literary production. It is true
the witnesses include Apostles, f prophets,:): confessors,§
our Blessed Lord Himself :|| but the distance of these

* De Wette, § 164. t John i. 45 ; 2 Cor. iii. 15.

X Dan. ix. 11 ; Mai iv. 4. § Acts vii. 38.

|| Matt. xix. 7, 8 ; Mark x. 3 ; xii. 26 ; Luke xvi. 29 ; xxiv. 27 ; John v.
46, &c.

ogQ AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VL

witnesses from the age of Moses is held to invalidate
their testimony ;* or if the words of One at least are
too sacred to be gainsaid, He spoke (it is argued) by
way of accommodation, in order not to shock the prej-
udices of the Jews. We are challenged to# produce
witnesses near the time, and told that no evidence to
the Mosaic authorship " approaches within seven cen-
turies to the probable age of Moses." f Of course, if
the antiquity of the Pentateuch be denied, that of the
later books of the Old Testament is not likely to pass
unquestioned. But the challenge is really met, and
answered fully and fairly by an appeal to those books,
which are the only writings within the period named
in which any reference to Moses was to be expected.
The author of Joshua, by many thought to be Joshua
himself, and, if not he, at least one of his contempora-
ries, X speaks of " the Book of the Law," § — " the
Book of the Law of Moses,"]— a book containing "all
that Moses commanded,"!" with " blessings and curs-
ings ; " ** thus entirely corresponding, so far as the
description goes, to the work which has always passed
under Moses' name. The writer of Judges is less
express ;ft Dut he so completely agrees in his account
of the Hebrew institutions with the Pentateuch, and
so closely follows its diction in many places, that a
candid Rationalist^ has been driven to allow, that
" the arranger of this book was well acquainted with
the Pentateuch in its entire extent." In Samuel,
though the Pentateuch itself is not mentioned, there
are at least two clear citations of it — the passage re-
specting " the priest's custom with the people,"§§ which
follows word for word Deut. xviii. 3, and that con-

* ' Westminster Review,' No. xxxv., p. 35.

+ Ibid. 1. s. c.

% For proof of this, see the ' Bampton Lectures' for 1859, p. 83, first edi-
tion.

§ Josh. i. 8 ; viii. 34. \ lb. viii. 31 ; xxiii. G. "If lb. vm. 35.

** lb. ver. 34; compare Deut. xxvii. and xxviiL Note also the quota-
tions in Josh. viii. 31, from Deut. xxvii. 5, G ; and in Josh, xxiii. 7, from Ex.
xxiii. 13. _ , ...

tt Judg. ii. 15 is probably a reference to Lev. xxvi. 1G, 17; and Judg. m.
4, to the law generally.

XX Hartmann. §§ 1 Sam. ii. 13.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 281

cerning the " assembling of women at the door of tlie
Tabernacle of the congregation,"* which is an exact
repetition of Ex. xxxviii. 8. In Kings and Chronicles
— both probably compilations made from papers con-
temporary with the kings whose history is related — the
references to the work are frequent :f and it is unhesi-
tatingly assigned to Moses,;): as indeed is admitted on
all hands.

It thus appears that the Pentateuch is either cited,
or mentioned as the work of Moses, by almost the
whole series of Jewish historical writers from Moses
himself to Ezra. The first testimony occurs within
(probably) half a century of Moses' decease, and is
by a writer who may have known him personally. It
is rarely indeed that we have evidence of this satisfac-
tory and conclusive character with respect to the genu-
ineness of any ancient work.

9. With regard to profane testimony, it must be
allowed that none of it is very ancient. But this simply
results from the fact that none of the earlier authors
have occasion to mention the Jews, or to touch the
subject of their literature. The first who do so —
Manetho and Hecatggus of Abdera, an Egyptian and a
Greek — are in accordance with the native authorities,
ascribing the law of the Jews, which is represented as
existing in a written form, to Moses. And the later
classical writers, with but one exception, are of the
same opinion.

10. To this direct testimony the adversaries of the
Mosaic authorship are wont to oppose certain difficul-
ties, which militate (they argue) against the notion that
the work is even of the age of Moses. The most im-
portant of these is the objection of Do Wette, that the
book is altogether beyond the literary capabilities of
the age, containing within it every element of Hebrew
literature in the highest perfection to which it ever
attained, and thus (he thinks) necessarily belonging to

* 1 Sam. ii. 22.

+ 1 Kings ii. 3; 2 Kings xxii. 8; xxiii. 3; 2 Chron. xxiii. 18; xxv. 4;
xxxv. 12.

% 1 Kings ii. 3; 2 Kings xxiii. 25; 2 Chron. xxiii. 18, &c.

282 AIDS T0 TAITH. [Essay VI.

the acme and not to the infancy of the nation.* Were
this statement correct, we should indeed have a strange
phenomenon to account for, though one which could
not be pronounced impossible, if the Divine as well as
the human authorship were taken into consideration.
God might have chosen to assign to the first burst of
written Revelation a literary perfection never after-
wards to be exceeded or even equalled. He might
have given to His first mouthpiece, Moses, such powers
of mind and such a mastery over the Hebrew language
as " to leave nothing for succeeding authors but to fol-
low in his footsteps." The fact, however, is not really
so. De Wette's statement is a gross exaggeration of
the reality. Considered as a literary work, the Penta-
teuch is not the production of an advanced or refined,
but of a simple and rude age. Its characteristics are
plainness, inartificiality, absence of rhetorical orna-
ment, and occasional defective arrangement. The
only style which it can be truly said to bring to perfec-
tion, is that simple one of clear and vivid narrative,
which is always best attained in the early dawn of a
nation's literature, as a Herodotus, a Froissart, and a
Stow sufficiently indicate. In other respects it is quite
untrue to say that the work goes beyond all later
Hebrew efforts. We look in vain through the Penta-
teuch for the gnomic wisdom of Solomon, the eloquent
denunciations of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, or the lofty
flights of Isaiah. It is absurd to compare the song of
Moses, as a literary production, even with some of the
Psalms of David, much more to parallel it with
Ezekiel's eloquence and Homeric variety, or Isaiah's
awful depth and solemn majesty of repose. In a liter-
ary point of view it may be questioned whether Moses
did so much for the Hebrews as Homer for the Greeks,
or whether his writings had really as great an influence
on the after productions of his countrymen. And if
his literary greatness still surprises us, if Hebrew liter-
ature still seems in his person to reach too suddenly a
high excellence, albeit not so high a one as has been

* ' Einleitung,' § 163, sub. fin.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 283

argued — let us remember, in the first place, that Moses
was not, any more than Homer, the first writer of his
nation, but only happens to be the first whose writings
have come down to us. " Yixere fortes ante Agamem-
nona." Moses seems so great because we do not
possess the works of his predecessors, and so are unable
to trace the progress of Hebrew literature up to him.
Had we the " songs " of Israel,* and the " book of the
wars of the Lord," which he quotes, f we might find him
no literary phenomenon at all, but as a writer merely
on a level with others of his age and nation. Again,
we must not forget to take into consideration the stim-
ulus which contact with the cultivation of Egypt would
naturally have given to Hebrew literature during the
two centuries preceding Moses. If we may trust the
modern decipherers of Egyptian papyri, literature in
Egypt had reached a tolerably advanced stage in the
time of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, under
one or other of which Moses was in all probability born
and bred. " The art of writing books was invented
ages before the time of Moses ; " J and had been car-
ried further in Egypt than in any other country. His-
tory, epistolary correspondence, and novel-writing were
known and practised ; so that the composition of an
extensive work possessing literary merits even of a
high order would be no strange thing in the case of
one bred up in the first circles of Egyptian society,
and " learned in all the wisdom " of that ingenious
people.

11. Besides this general objection, there are a cer-
tain number of particular passages which, it is said,
record facts later than the time of Moses, and thus
could not have been written by him. Such are sup-
posed to be the mention of Dan instead of Laish in
Gen. xiv. 14 ; of Hebron instead of Kirjath-Arba or
Marnre in Genesis § and Numbers ; || and the list of the
kings of Edom in Gen. xxxvi. Now in none of these

* Num. xxi. 17 ; compare Ex. xv. 1. t Num. xxi. 14.

X Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 3S4. Compare 'Cambridge Essays' for
1858, pp. 230-260.

§ Gen. xiii. 18 ; xxiii. 2, 19 ; xxxv. 27, &c. [ Num. xiii. 22.

2S4 AID3 T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

cases is it really impossible that Moses may have writ-
ten the passages. The Dan intended may be Dan-
jaan,* and not Laish. Hebron may have been a name
of the city called also Mamre and Kirjath-Arba, within
the lifetime of Moses. Even the eight kings of Edom
may possibly be a dynasty of monarchs intervening
between Esau and Moses, the last of the eight being
Moses' contemporary, as conjectured by Havernick.f
The remarkable expression, " These are the kings that
reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any
'king over the children of Israel" may be understood
prophetically. Moses may have intended in the passage
to mark his full belief in the promises made by God
to Abraham and Jacob \% that " kings should come out
of their loins," a belief which he elsewhere expresses
very confidently.! There is no really valid or insuper-
able objection to any of these explanations ; which may
not strike us as clever or dexterous, yet which may be
true nevertheless ; for " Le mai rCest pas toujours le
maiseniblableP

12. Or the right explanation may be the more com-
monly received one — that these words, phrases, and
passages, together with a few others similar to them,
are later additions to the text, either adopted into it
upon an authoritative revision, such as that ascribed
to Ezra, or, perhaps, accidentally introduced through
the mistakes of copyists, who brought into the text
wmat had been previously added, by way of exegesis,
in the margin. Such additions constantly occur in the
case of classical writers ; and there is no reason to sup-
pose that a special providence would interfere to pre-
vent their occurrence in the Sacred Yolume. "We " have
our treasure in earthen vessels." God gives us His
Eevelation, but leaves it to us to preserve it by the
ordinary methods by which books are handed down
to posterity. No doubt its transcendent value has
caused the bestowal of especial care and attention on
the transmission of the Sacred Yolume ; and the result

* 2 Sam. xxiw 6. + ' Einleitung,' § 124.

X Gen. xvii. C, 1G; xxxv. 11. § Deut. xvii. 14-20.

Essay VI.] TIIE PENTATEUCH.

285

is that no ancient collection has come down to us nearly
so perfect, or with so few corruptions and interpola-
tions ; but to declare that there are none, is to make
an assertion improbable a priori, and at variance with
the actual phenomena. The sober-minded in every
age have allowed that the written Word, as it has come
down to us, has these slight imperfections, wmich no
more interfere with its value than the spots upon the
sun detract from his brightness, or than a few marred
and stunted forms destroy the harmony and beauty of
Nature.

13. One other line of objection requires a few words
of notice. The whole Levitical system, it is sometimes
said, was an after-growth from the real Mosaic law,
which went but little, if at all, beyond the Decalogue.
This is thought to be evidenced by the scantiness of
any traces of Levitical worship throughout the period
of the Judges, and the infraction of various precepts
of the ceremonial law from the time of Joshua to that
of Nehemiah. But it has been shown* that though
the Book of Judges exhibits a very disordered political
and religious condition of the nation, and from its nature
— biographical rather than historical — is likely to con-
tain but little regarding the Mosaical institutions, yet
it does, in point of fact, bear witness to the knowledge
and practical existence during the period whereof it
treats, of a very considerable number of those usages
which are specially termed Levitical. The sacred
character of the Levites, their dispersion among the
different tribes, the settlement of the High-Priesthood
in the family of Aaron, the existence of the Ark of the
Covenant, the power of inquiring of God and obtaining
answers, the irrevocability of a vow, the distinguishing
mark of circumcision, the distinction between clean and.
unclean meats, the law of the Nazarite, the use of burnt-
offerings and peace-offerings, the employment of trum-
pets as a means of obtaining Divine aid in war, the
impiety of setting up a king, are severally acknowl-
edged in the Book of Judges, and constitute together

* By Havermck. • Einleitung,' § 136.

256 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay YL

very good evidence that the Mosaic ceremonial law
was already in force, and, though disregarded in many
points by the mass, was felt as binding by all those
who had any real sense of religion. The ritual, as a
whole, is clearly not of later introduction than the time
of the Judges, since twelve or thirteen of its main points
are noted as being at that time in force. "Why, then,
should we suppose, merely because the book is silent
on the subject, that the other enactments which are in
the same spirit and are inextricably intertwined with
these, were not known at the period ? It is always
dangerous to build on silence. Here the silence is only
partial ; and the half-utterance which we have is suffi-
cient to indicate what the full answer would have been,
had it come within the scope of the writer to deliver
it. There is thus ample reason to conclude that the
Levitical law was complete in all its parts before the
time of the Judges.

What, then, shall we say to its infractions? what
to David's " priests of the tribe of Judah ? " what to
Solomon himself offering sacrifice? what more espe-
cially to the suspension of the Feast of Tabernacles for
eight hundred years from Joshua to Nehemiah ?* Are
they compatible with the existence of the Pentateuch
at the time, and with an acknowledgment of its Divine
authority on the part of those who disobeyed its injunc-
tions ? Even if we allow them all to be infractions,t

* < Westminster Review,' No. xxxv., p. 3fi. The writer gives no reference,
except to Nehemiah viii. 17, which shows (he thinks) that "for 800 years,
from the davs of Joshua to those of Ezra, the Feast of Tabernacles was un-
known in Israel." Probably he would regard "David's priests of the tribe
of Judah" as mentioned in 2 Sam. viii. 18, where the Hebrew has tP2H3?
which commonly means "priests;" while for "Solomon's sacrifices" we
should be referred to 1 Kings viii. 5, G2-G4; 2 Chr.-v. G; vii. 4, 5; and
viii. 12.

+ In point of fact, none of the infractions need be allowed. David's
"priests of the tribe of Judah" are probably not "priests," but "princes,"
or " chief rulers," as our Authorized Version renders. (See Buxtorf ad voc.
-,nb, and compare Gesenius ad eand., who allows that b,ri£ may mean " a
prince ; " though he prefers in this place to translate " priests," and to under-
stand " ecclesiastical counsellors." Note also that the LXX. give avXapxcu,
" chamberlains," and that in the parallel passage, 1 Chron. xviii. 17, the ex-
pression used is T^En *nb fiiaiBSnn, "chief" or "first about the king.")
With regard to Solomon's ' sacrifices, Tit is nowhere either stated or implied

s

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCII. 287

we may still answer that undoubtedly they are. An
authority may be acknowledged which is not obeyed.
Precepts may be heard, read, and known, may be as
familiar as household words in the mouths of persons,
and yet may not be carried out in act. There would
be nothing more strange in David's breaking the Leviti-
cal law with respect to priesthood in the case of his
sons, than in his infraction of the moral law respecting
chastity in the case of Uriah's wife. There would be
no greater marvel in Solomon's taking it upon himself
to offer sacrifice than in his marrying wives from the
forbidden nations. There would be nothing harder to
understand in the discontinuance after a while of one
of the great Mosaical feasts, than in the introduction
and stubborn maintenance from, one generation to an-
other of idolatrous rites. The moral law, admitted to
have been given by Moses, was broken constantly in
almost every clause ; why then should infractions of
the ceremonial law disprove its having come from
him ?

14. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is
therefore a thing which, to say the least, has not been
hitherto disproved ; and the ingenious -attempts of the
modern reconstructive criticism to resolve the work
into its various elements, and to give an account of the
times when and the persons by whom they were sev-
erally composed, even if they had no other fault, must
be pronounced premature; for until it is shown that
the book was not composed by its reputed author, the
mode and time of its composition are not fit objects
of research. The theological student may congratu-
late himself that this is so, and that he is not called
upon to study and decide between the twenty different
views— each more complicated than the last — which
Continental critics, from Astruc to Bunsen, have put
out on this aj)parently inexhaustible subject.

that he sacrificed with his own hand. " The priests" are mentioned as pres-
ent with him at the time (1 Kings viii. G ; 2 Chron. v. 7 ; vii. 2, 6), and it is
most probable that he used their services. Evidently he could not himself
have slain the 22,000_ oxen and 120,000 sheep of one sacrifice (1 Kings viii.
63). And Nehemiah, in viii. 17, probably only means that no such celebra-
tion of the feast had taken place since the time of Joshua.

2g3 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay YI.

15. It is sometimes said that questions of genuine-
ness are matters of mere idle curiosity, and that authen-
ticity is alone of importance. In an historical work
especially, what we want to know is, not by whom it
is written, but whether the narrative which it contains
is true. This last, no doubt, is our ultimate object;
but it not unfrequently happens that, for the purpose
of deciding it, we have to consider the other point ;
since the genuineness is often the best guarantee of the
authenticity. How entirely would it change our es-
timate of Xenophon's ' Anabasis,' were we to find that
it was composed under the name of Xenophon by a
Greek of the time of the Antonines ! Xo works are more
valuable for history than autobiographies ; and when
we come upon a document claiming any such character,
it is of great importance to see whether upon exami-
nation the character is sustained or no. Given the
genuineness of such a work, and the authenticity follows
almost as a matter of course, unless it can be shown
that the writer is unveracious, and wished to deceive.
Eationalists have not failed to perceive the force of this
reasoning with respecf to the Pentateuch; and hence their
laborious efforts to disprove its genuineness. Strauss
remarks naively enough — " The books which describe
the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their
wanderings through the wilderness, bear the name of
Moses, who, being their leader, would undoubtedly give
a faithful history of these occurrences, unless he designed
to deceive; and who, if his intimate connection with
Deity described in these books be historically true, was
likewise eminently qualified, by virtue of such con-
nection, to produce a credible history of the earlier
periods." * This admission on the part of the most ex-
treme of Eationalists is sufficient to show that, at least
in the case before us, it is not irrelevant or unimportant
to attempt to establish the genuineness of the record.^

16. Before the final close of this portion of the in-
quiry, it will perhaps be best to state distinctly in what
sense it is intended to maintain that Moses was the

* ' Lcbeu Jesu,' Einleitung. § 13.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 289

author of the Pentateuch. In the first place, it is not
intended to assert that he was the original composer of
all the documents contained in his volume. The Book
of Genesis bears marks of being to some extent a compi-
lation. Moses probably possessed a number of records,
some of greater, some of less antiquity, whereof, under
Divine guidance, he made use in writing the history of
mankind up to his own time. It is possible that the
Book of Genesis may have been, even mainly, com-
posed in this way from ancient narratives, registers,
and biographies, in part the property of the Hebrew
race, in part a possession common to that race with
others. Moses, guided by God's Spirit, would choose
among such documents those which were historically
true, and which bore on the religious history of the
human race. He would not be bound slavishly to
follow, much less to transcribe them, but would curtail,
expand, adorn, complete them, and so make them thor-
oughly his own, infusing into them the religious tone
of his own mind, and at the same time re-writing them
in his own language. Thus it would 'seem that Genesis
was produced. With regard to the remainder of his
history, he would have no occasion to use the labours
of others, but would write from his own knowledge.'

In the second place, it is not intended to deny that
the Pentateuch may have undergone an authoritative
revision by Ezra, when the language may have been to
some extent modernised, and a certain number of par-
enthetic insertions may have been made into the text.
The Jewish tradition on this head seems to deserve
attention from its harmony with what is said of Ezra in
the book which bears his name.* And this authoritative
revision would account at once for the language not
being more archaic than it is, and for the occasional
insertion of parentheses of the nature of a comment.
It would also explain the occurrence of " Chaldaism "
in the text.f

* See Lord Arthur Hervey's article on 'Ezra,' in Dr. Smith's 'Biblical
Dictionary,' vol. i., p. 606.

t Hirzel, ' De Chaldaismi Biblici origine,' pp. 5 et seqq. There is also
another mode in which the "Chaldaisms" may be accounted for. As
13

290

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

Thirdly, it is, of course, not intended to include in
the Pentateuch the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which
was evidently added after Moses' death, probably by
the writer of the Book of Joshua.

IT. The authenticity of the Pentateuch has been
recently called in question, principally on the following
points : — 1. The chronology, which is regarded as very
greatly in deficiency; 2. The account given of the
Flood, which is supposed to magnify a great calamity
in Upper Asia into a general destruction of the human
race; 3. The ethnological views, which are said to be
sometimes mistaken ; 4. The patriarchal genealogies,
which are charged with being purely mythical ; 5. The
length of the lives of the Patriarchs, which is thought
to be simply impossible ; and 0. The duration of the
sojourn in Egypt, which is considered incompatible
with the number of Israelites on entering and quitting
the country. It is proposed, in the remainder of this
paper, to consider briefly these six subjects.

I. According to Baron Bunsen, the historic records
of Egypt reach up to the year b.c. 9085. A sacerdotal
monarchy was then established, and Bytis, the Theban
priest of Amnion, was the first king. Before this Egypt
had been republican, and separate governments had
existed in the different nomes. Egyptian nationality
commenced as early as b. c. 10,000. "These conclusions
are vaguely said to be drawn "from Egyptian records,"*
or "from the monuments and other records ;"t expres-
sions apt to beget a belief that there is really monu-
mental evidence for them. Let us then see, in the first
place, what is the true basis on which they rest. ^

The Egyptian monuments contain no continuous
chronology, and no materials from which a continuous
chonological scheme can be framed.^ The possibility

Chaldee and Hebrew are sister tongues, having one common parent, the
forms and expressions in question may have been common to both at first,
but have died out in the Hebrew while they were retained in the Chaldee.
Movers observes with reason :— " Aramaic forms in a book are either a sign
of a very early or of a very late composition." (' Bonner Zeitschnft iur
Philosophic' xvi. 157.) Those in Genesis may be really " Archaisms.

* ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 54. t Bunsen's ' Egypt,' vol. iv., p. 553.

% " The history of the dynasties preceding the 18th," says Mr. Stuart

Essay VI.] THE TENTATEUCH. 291

of constructing such a scheme depends entirely upon
the outline which has been preserved to ns of the
Sebennytic priest Manetho, who composed a history of
Egypt under the early Ptolemies. This outline is in a
very imperfect condition ; and the two versions of it,
which we find in Syncellus and in the Armenian Euse-
bius, differ considerably. Still both agree in represent-
ing Egypt as governed by thirty dynasties of kings
from Menes to Alexander, and the sum of the years
which they assign to these dynasties is a little above
(or a little below) 5000. The monuments have proved
two things with respect to these lists : they have shown,
in the first place, that (speaking generally) they are his-
torical— that the persons mentioned were real men, who
actually lived and reigned in Egypt ; while, secondly,
they have shown that though all reigned in Egypt, all
did not reign over the whole of Egypt, but while some
were kings in one part of the country, others ruled in
another. It is allowed on all hands — by M. Bunsen
no less than by others — that no chronological scheme
of any real value can be formed from Manetho's lists
until it be first determined, either which dynasties and
monarchs were contemporary, or what deduction from
the sum total of the dynastic years is to be made on
account of contemporaneousness. M. Bunsen regards
this point as one which Manetho himself determined,
and assumes that he was sure to determine it aright.
He finds a statement in Syncellus," that "Manetho
made his dynasties cover a space of 113 generations,
or 3555 years ;" and he accepts this statement as com-
pletely removing the difficulty, and absolutely estab-
lishing the historic fact that the accession of Menes to
the crown of Egypt took place more than thirty-six
centuries before our era.f He then professes to follow

Poole, " is not told by any continuous series of monuments. Except those of
the 4th and 12th dynasties there are scarcely any records of the age left to
the present day." (' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. p. 509.) M. Bunsen also
savs, in one place, of the Egyptian monuments : — " Such documents cannot
indeed compensate for the want of written history. Even Chronology, its
framework, cannot be elicited from them."— ('Egypt,' vol. i., p. 32.)

* ' Chronograph,' p. 52, D.

t ' Egypt,' vol. i. pp. 86-89. Lepsius, on the same grounds, and keeping
closer to "his authority, places Menes nearly 39 centuries before Christ.

292 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

Manetho for the preceding period ; but here he distorts
and misrepresents him. Manetho gave his Egyptian
dynasties altogether about 30,000 years. This long
space he divided, however, into a natural and a super-
natural period. To the supernatural period, during
which Egypt was governed by gods, demigods, and
spirits, he assigned 24,925 years. To the natural pe-
riod, which began with Menes, he gave at any rate not
much more than 5000. M. Bunsen, not content with
this antiquity, but determining to find (or make) a
greater, changes the order of Manetho's early dynas-
ties, and by removing to a higher position, without au-
thority and of his own mere fancy, one which is plainly
supernatural, obtains for the natural period four dynas-
ties, covering a space of 5212 years (or, as he makes it,
5162 years), which are capable of being represented as
human. This, then, is the mode in which the date
b. c. 90S5 is reached. It is not obtained from the mon-
uments, which have no chronology, or at any rate none
earlier than b. c. 1525. It is not derived from Mane-
tho, for it is in direct contradiction to his views, more
than doubling the period during which, according to
him, Egypt had had human kings. It is a mere theory
of M. Bunsen's, to square with which Manetho's lists
have been violently disturbed, and above 5000 years
subtracted from his divine to be added to his human
period.

Even with respect to Menes, and the supposed date
of b. c. 3S92 (according to Lepsius), or b. c. 3623 (ac-
cording to M. Bunsen), for his accession, on what does
it in reality depend ? Not on any monumental evi-
dence, but simply on the supposition that in a certain
passage (greatly disputed*) of Syncellus, he has cor-
rectly represented Manetho's views, and on the further
supposition that Manetho's views were absolutely right.
But is it reasonable to suppose that Manetho had data
for determining with such exactitude an event so re-

* Biickh in Germany, and Mons. C. Midler in France, have disputed M.
Bunsen's conclusions from the passage of Syncellus. The latter thinks that
it is a Pseudo-Manetho to whom Syncellus refers. The former regards the
passage as corrupt, and suspects that Annianus was quoted, not Manetho.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 993

mote, even if it be a real event at all,* as the acces-
sion of Menes ? It is plain and palpable, and moreover
universally admitted, that between the ancient mon-
archy (or rather monarchies) of Egypt and the later
kingdom, there intervened a time of violent disturbance
— the period known as the domination of the Ilyksos —
during which the native Egyptians suffered extreme
oppression, and throughout Egypt all was disorder and
confusion. The notices of this period are so vague and
uncertain, that moderns dispute whether it lasted 500,
600, 900, or 2000 years.f Few monuments belong to
it. It is extremely doubtful whether an Egyptian of
Manetho's age, honestly investigating the records of
the past, could have carried on chronology, with any
approach to exactness, beyond the commencement of
the eighteenth dynasty, which effected the expulsion
of the Ilyksos or Shepherd kings. From that time
Egypt had been united, and had been a tolerably set-
tled monarchy. Previously, the country had been
divided into a multitude of states, sometimes more,
sometimes fewer in number, each knowing very little
of the rest, all inclined to magnify their own duration
and antiquity, and none able effectually to check the
others. Let it be granted that Manetlio honestly en-
deavoured to collect and arrange the lists of kings in
the several states among which Egypt had been par-
celled out. What a task was before him ! Royal mon-
uments, or dynastic lists of better or worse authority,
might give him the names of the monarchs and the
number of years that each had borne the royal title.
But as " association " was widely practised in Egypt — .
two, three, and even more kings occupying the throne
together — it would have been a work of extreme diffi-
culty, without full and detailed records, which can
scarcely be supposed to have generally survived the

* Whether Menes was an historic personage at all may reasonably be
doubted. It is not pretended that he left any monuments. As a name
closely resembling his is found in the earliest traditions of various nations,
e. g. Menu in India, Minos in Crete, Manis in Phrygia, Manes in Lydia, and
Mannus in Germany, there is at least reason to suspect that he belongs to
myth rather than to'history.

t Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 508; 'Bibl. Diet.,' vol. i. p. 503.

294 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

Ilyksos period, to make out from the length of the
reigns the duration of any dynasty. And to determine
what dynasties were contemporary and what consecu-
tive would have been a still harder task. It is ex-
tremely doubtful whether Manetho really made any
effort to overcome these difficulties. Setting aside the
single disputed passage of Syncellus, we have no evi-
dence that he did. His lists, as they have come down
to us, both in Syncellus and Eusebius, are a mere
enumeration, in a single line, of thirty dynasties of
kings, with an estimate of the years of each dynasty,
evidently formed by merely adding together the years
of the several reigns. There is no trace in either epit-
ome of any allowance being made, either on account
of contemporary kings within a dynasty, or on account
of contemporary dynasties. ' Apparently, Manetho
either declined the task of arranging and completing
the chronology as one for which he had no sufficient
data, or preferred to leave the impression on foreigners
that the dynasties and kings were all consecutive, and
that Egypt had a history stretching back fifty centuries
before Alexander ! Other Egyptian priests before him
had made even greater exaggerations.*

If it be still thought that the mere opinion of men
so well acquainted with the Egyptian monuments, as
Bunsen and Lepsius, ought to have weight, despite the
weakness of the argumentative grounds on which they
rest their conclusions, let it be remembered that others,
as deeply read in hieroglyphic lore, and as capable of
forming a judgment, have come to conclusions wholly
different. Sir Gardner Wilkinson inclines to place the
accession of Menes about b. c. 2690,f and Mr. Stuart
Poole gives as his first year b. c. 27174 These writers
believe that the number of contemporaneous dynasties
has been much under-estimated by the German savans,
who have especially erred in regarding the Theban
dynasties as, all of them, subsequent to the Memphite.
They consider that Manetho's first and third Theban

* Herod, ii. 100 and 142, 143.

t See the writer's ' Herodotus,' vol. ii. pp. 342, 343.

X ' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. p. 508.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 09 r

dynasties were contemporary with his third, fourth, and
fifth Memphite; that the first and second Shepherd
dynasties ruled at the same time in different parts of
Lower Egypt ; and that the dynasty of Choites (Mane-
tho's 14th) was contemporary with the two Shepherd
dynasties above mentioned, and with the second Theban.
They do not deny that their arrangement of the dynas-
ties is to some extent conjectural ; but they maintain
that, while the idea of it was derived from a close in-
spection of Manetho's lists, it is also " strikingly con-
firmed by the monuments."* While names of such
weight can be quoted on the side of a moderate Egyp-
tian chronology, it cannot be reasonably argued that
Egyptian records have disproved the Biblical narrative.
Still less can it be argued that the records of other
nations, so far as they have any pretension to be con-
sidered historical, conflict with the chronology of the
Bible. The Babylonians indeed, the Indians, and the
Chinese, in their professed histories of ancient times,
carry back the antiquity of our race for several hun-
dred thousand years. But it is admitted that in every
case these large numbers are purely mythical ; and, in
truth, the authentic histoi'ies of all these nations begin
even later than the Egyptian. India has no historical
documents earlier than the third,f or China than the
sixth century b. c. Indian history scarcely goes back
beyond the time of Alexander ; Chinese is not thought
by those who place most faith in the early literature
of the country to ascend any higher than the year b. c.
26374 The Babylonian historian, Berosus, while he
claimed for the human race an antiquity of above
466,000 years, arranged his dynasties in such a way as
to make it palpable that the historic period began, at
the earliest, in b. c. 2458. This is the conclusion of
Sir Henry Bawlinson in England, of Gutschmid and
Brandis in Germany. § These critics divide the nine

* Ibid. p. 507.

t See the late Professor Wilson's Introduction to the ' Rig- Veda Sanhita,'
pp. xlvi., xlvii.

X Remusat, 'Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques,' vol. i. p. 65: Bunsen.
'Egypt,' vol. iii. pp. 379-407.

§ Gutschmid, ' Rheinisches Museum,' vol. viii. p. 252 et seqq. ; Brandis,
' Rerum Assyriarum Tempora emendata,' pp. 16, 17.

296 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

dynasties of Berosus into two mythic ones (reigning
the extravagant periods of 432,000 and 3±,0S0 years),
and seven historic ones, all reigning moderate and pos-
sible periods, varying between 87 and 526 years. It
might have seemed incredible that in the nineteenth
century any critic could take a different view. M.
Bunsen, however, believing that he has "devised a
method"* whereby the historical part of the second
dynasty, which he arbitrarily divides, may be reduced
to 1550 years, adds that space of time to Berosus] his-
toric chronology, and decides that the regular registra-
tion of the oldest Chaldrean kings commenced b.c.
3 784. He thus assumes the partially historic character
of a dynasty said to have reigned "more than 34,000
years, two kings of which — Chomasbelus and Evechius
—are made to occupy the throne for above 5000 years !
It seems needless to examine the "method" whereby,
from data thus manifestly unhistoric, an exact conclu-
sion, claiming to be historically certain, is drawn. f

On the whole it would seem that no profane history
of an authentic character mounts up to an earlier date
than the 27th or 28th century before Christ. Egyptian
history begins about b.c. 2700 ; Chinese, perhaps, in
b,c. 2637 ; Babylonian in b.c. 2458 ; Assyrian in b.c.
1273 ; Greek, with the Trojan War, in b.c. 1250, or,
perhaps, with Hercules, a century earlier ; Lydian in
b.c 1229 ; Phoenician about the same period ;;f Car-
thaginian in b.c 8S0 ; Macedonian about b.c. 720 ;
Median not before b.c. 70S ; Koman in the middle of
the same century ; Persian in b.c. 558 ; Indian, about
b.c. 350 ; Mexican and Peruvian not till after our era.§

* 'Egypt,' vol. ir. p. 411. ..„',_, •

t One method, however, whereby M. Bunsen exaggerates his Babylonian
chronology seems worthy of notice. It is the method of mistranslation.
Philo Byblius having observed in his work about Cities that Babylon was
founded 1002 years (eTect x'Aiots 8uo) before Semiramis, M. Bunsen renders
the words in brackets by " tico thousand years," thus gaining for his chro-
nology near a thousand years at a stroke. (See his ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 414,
and again p. 491.)

% See the writer's ' Herodotus,' vol. iv. p. 240. The first known Phoeni-
cian king is Abibal, the father of Hiram, David's contemporary. He cannot
be placed earlier than b.c. 1100.

§ See Prescott, « History of the Conquest of Mexico,' vol. i. p. 13 ; His-
tory of the Conquest of Peru,' vol. i. pp. 10-14.

Essay VI.] TIIE PENTATEUCH. 297

The oldest human constructions remaining upon the
earth are the Pyramids, and these date from about b.c.
2400 ; * the brick temples of Babylonia seem, none of
them, earlier than b.c. 2300 ; f b.c. 2000 would be a
high date for the first Cyclojnan walls in Greece or
Italy ; the earliest rock inscriptions belong to nearly
the same period. If man has existed upon the earth
ten or twenty thousand years, as M. Bunsen supposes,
why has he left no vestiges of himself till within the
last five thousand ? ;£ It cannot be said that his earlier
works would necessarily have perished ; for there is
nothing to hinder the Pyramids or the Birs Nimrucl
from standing several thousand years longer. It is re-
marked that in Egypt the most ancient monuments
exhibit but slight traces of rudeness, and that the arts
within two centuries of Menes are in a very advanced
condition, so that civilisation must have made great
progress even before the age of Menes. But " the con-
stitutional development of Egyptian life " into the con-
dition reached in the time of the early monuments,
does not require a term of five or six thousand years,
as M. Bunsen argues,§ but rather one of five or six
hundred years, which is what the Biblical numbers
will allow. There is nothing surprising in a high
civilisation, even within a very short time from the
Deluge ; for the arts of life, which flourished in the
ante-diluvian world,] would have been preserved by
those who survived the catastrophe, and might rapidly
revive among their descendants. Bather, it is surpris-
ing that, except in Egypt, there should be so few traces
of an early civilisation. Babylonian art, for many cen-

* Wilkinson in the writer's ' Herodotus,' vol. ii. p. 343 ; Stuart Poole in
the ' Biblical Dictionary,' vol. i. p. 508.

t Sir H. Rawlinson in the writer's ' Herodotus,' vol. i. p. 435.

X The " flint weapons in the drift," and Mr. Horner's Egyptian pottery,
will be said to be such vestiges. But the extremely doubtful age of the
latter has been well shown by the ' Quarterly Review ' (No. 210, pp. 419-421).
The value of the former as evidence of extreme human antiquity must depend
on two questions, neither of which has yet been solved — 1. Are they of the
same age as the formation in which they are found ? and 2. Is that forma-
tion itself of an antiquity very remote? It has been clearly shown by a
writer in 'Blackwood's Magazine' (No. 540, pp. 422^39), that the high an-
tiquity of the drift is at anv rate "not proven."

% 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 571. I Gen. iv. 20-22.

13*

298 ^IDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VL

turies after the first establishment of the kingdom (b.c,
2458), is exceedingly rude and primitive ; the Greek
and Italian buildings, approaching to the same date,
are of the roughest construction ; it is not till about
the year b.c. 1000 that a really advanced civilisation
appears in any part of Asia, nor much before b.c. 600
that it can be traced in Europe. Thus, monumental
and historical evidence alike indicate that the " Ori-
gines " of our race are recent, and the dates established
on anything like satisfactory evidence, fall, in every
case, within the time allowed to post-diluvian man by
Scripture.

For the date of the Deluge, which we are most
justified in drawing from the Sacred documents, is not,
as commonly supposed, b.c. 2348, but rather b.c 3099,
or even b.c 3159 — sixty years earlier.* The modern
objectors to the Chronology of Scripture seek common-
ly to tie down their opponents to the present Hebrew
text ;f but there is no reason why they should submit
to this restriction. The Septuagint Version was re-
garded as of primary authority during the first ages of
the Christian Church : it is the version commonly
quoted in the New Testament ; and thus, where it
differs from the Hebrew, it is at least entitled to equal
attention. The larger chronology of the Septuagint
would, therefore, even if it stood alone, have as good a
claim as the shorter one of the Hebrew text, to be con-
sidered the Chronology of Scripture. It does not, how-
ever, stand alone. For the period between the Flood
and Abraham, the Septuagint has the support of an-
other ancient and independent version — the Samaritan.
It is argued that the Septuagint numbers were enlarged
by the Alexandrian Jews in order to bring the Hebrew
chronology into harmony with the Egyptian ;J but there
is no conceivable reason why the Samaritans should
have altered their Pentateuch* in this direction, and no

* See the ' Biblical Dictionary,' sub voc. Chronology, and Mr. W. Palm-
er's 'Egyptian Chronicles,' p. 896.

t Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 402 ; ' Westminster Review,' No. 38, p. 569 ;
' Essays and Reviews,' pp. 54, 55.

% ''Westminster Review,' 1. s. c. ; Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. i. p. 185; vol. iv.
n. 396.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 299

very ready mode of accounting for the identity* of the
numbers in these two versions, but by supposing that
they are the real numbers of the original. This iden-
tity it has been usual to keep out of sight ; but it is a
most important feature in the case, and furnishes a
solid ground for preferring, apart from all historical
considerations, that longer system of Biblical Chronol-
ogy with which Egyptian and all other profane history
is found to be in accordance.

Besides the purely historic objections to the Bibli-
cal Chronology which have been here examined, an-
other semi-historic one has been recently taken, which
seems to require some notice. Languages, it is said,
bear traces of having all proceeded from a common
stock. Time was, when " the whole earth was of one
language and of one speech. "f But this time must
have been immensely remote. Languages grow but
slowly. It has taken nearly 2000 years to develop
modern French, Italian, and Spanish out of Latin.
Must it not have taken much longer to develop Latin,
Greek, German, Celtic, Slavonic, Zend, Sanscrit, out
of their mother-speech ? And that mother-speech itself
which had an affinity, and so a connexion, with the
Semitic and Turanian forms of language, yet was far
more widely separated from them than its daughter
tongues from one another, what a vast period must
have been required for its formation and divergence
from the other linguistic types ! Even the primitive
tongue itself did not spring to its full height at once, or
reach the era of decay and change till after a long term
of years. Twenty-one thousand years — " the period of
one great revolution of the globe upon its axis " — is (we
are told) " a very probable term for the development of
human language in the shortest line ;" and so the con-
clusion is drawm, that the true era of man's creation is
not B.C. 9035, when Egyptian history is said to have

* The identity is complete, if we reject from the Septuagint the false
reading of some copies (17'J for 79) in Gen. xi. 24, and omit the interpolated
Cainan, who was unknown to Philo, Josephus, Theophilus ofAntioch, and
Eusebius. (See Clinton's ' Fasti Hellenici,' vol. i. p. 287 ; ' Biblical Diction-
ary,' vol. i. p. 310.) t Gen. xi. 1.

3qq AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

begun, nor b.c. 14,000, when Hamitism and Semitism
were first " deposited," but six thousand years before
the earlier of these two dates— b.c. 20,000 !*

This argument claims an inductive character. It
bases itself on the historical ground, that a certain
number of years have been required for the develop-
ment of French, Italian, Spanish, Wallachian, &c, out
of Latin ; and assumes that from this the rate of change
or growth in language is determinately, or approxi-
mately, known. The rate is viewed as relative to the
degree of change or divergence, so that as Celtic, Sla-
vonic, German, Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit are far more
unlike one another than French, Italian, and Spanish,
a far longer period must be allowed for their forma-
tion.f The argument thus gathers strength at each
stage ; and as there are at least four stages, the formula
becomes something very much like this : — a + 10a +100
a + 1000a=s; so that it may seem a moderate esti-
mate to say, that 5=21,000 years.

But the following considerations detract from the
force of the reasoning. The induction on which it rests
is from a single instance — the case of Latin and its
daughter tongues. It does not at all follow, that
because a particular language under particular cir-
cumstances took a certain time to blossom into new
tongues ; therefore, every other language of a similar
type, would, under all conceivable circumstances, do
the same.

The unit which is assumed to be known, and which
is made the basis of the whole calculation — the a of the
•above equation — is in reality unknown. It is impos-
sible to say how long it took for Latin to change into
French or Italian. Latin was probably imperfectly
learnt by the Italians and the Gauls from the first, and
a language far more like Italian than classical Latin
was probably spoken in the provinces of Italy at a very
early date. AVe know at the utmost what the date is

* Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. pp. 560-566, and p. 485.

t " If the step"from Latin to Italian be taken as a unit, the previous step
must be reckoned at least at ten or at twenty." (Bunsen's ' Egypt,' vol. iv.
pp. 562, 503.)

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 3Q|

of the first extant French or Italian document. We
have no means of deciding when French or Italian first
hegan to be a spoken tongue.

The argument assumes as certain that equal linguis-
tic changes must have occupied equal periods of time
at all portions of the world's history, which is much
the same as to assume that constitutional changes in
states must be equal in equal times ; or that, because
B, a youth of eighteen, 5 ft. 10 in. high, grew half an
inch between the 1st of January, 1860, and the 1st of
January, 1861, therefore he grew at the same rate all
his previous lifetime. Such an assumption, were it ap-
plied to discover the age of the youth by one who pos-
sessed no other data, might lead to the conclusion that
he verged upon 140 ! It is quite possible that similar
reasoning, applied to the age of language, may have
produced a term of years almost equally in excess of
the truth.

!Nbt only the analogy of growth generally, but cer-
tain known linguistic facts favour the view, that when
language was still young, it grew with a rapidity quite
unknown to its later stages. Nothing so much tends
to fix and stereotype a language as a literature. "When,
therefore, there was as yet no literature to keep the
vagaries of speech in check, it would have been in a
perpetual flux and change, and may, in a comparatively
short space, have undergone the greatest modifications.
Again, when literature is wanting, yet men live to-
gether in political communities of a large size, the
requirements of social intercourse with a wide circle act
as a safeguard against rapid dialectical change. But
in the simpler and earlier times, before such communi-
ties were formed, when men were chiefly or wholly
homades, and lived in small and isolated bodies with-
out much intercourse with one another, this check
would not have existed. Linguistic changes may,
under such circumstances, have taken place with ex-
traordinary quickness, and a growth equal to that,
which would in later times, and under other circum-
stances, have required five hundred or a thousand

302 AIDS T0 FAITH. [EsbayVI.

years, may have been contained within an ordinary
lifetime. " Tribes," says Professor M. Midler, " who
have no literature, and no sort of intellectual occupa-
tion, seem occasionally to take a delight in working
their language to the highest pitch of grammatical ex-
pansion. The American dialects are a well-known in-
stance ; and the greater the seclusion of a tribe, the
more amazing the rank vegetation of their grammar.
We can, at present, hardly form a correct idea with
what feeling a savage nation looks upon its language ;
whether, it may be, as a plaything, a kind of intellect-
ual amusement — a maze in which the mind likes to lose
and to find itself. But the result is the same every-
where. If the work of agglutination has once com-
menced, and there is nothing like literature or society
to keep it within limits, two villages, separated only
for a few generations, will become mutually unintel-
ligible. This takes place in America, as well as on the
borders of China and India ; and in the north of Asia,
Messerschmidt relates, that the Ostiakes, though really
speaking the same language everywhere, have pro-
duced so many words and forms peculiar to each tribe5
that even within the limits of twelve or twenty German
miles, conversation between them becomes extremely
difficult. It must be remembered also, that the Dic-
tionary of these languages is small, if compared with a
Latin or a Greek Thesaurus. The conversation of no-
madic tribes moves within a narrow circle ; and with
the great facility of forming new words at random, and
the great inducement that a solitary life holds out to
invent for the objects which form the world of a shep-
herd or huntsman, new appellations — half poetical, per-
haps, or satirical — we can understand how, after a few
generations, the dictionary of a nomadic tribe may have
gone, as it were, through more than one edition."*
These observations, which are made in reference to
Turanian dialects, have a more extended bearing. They
show that while the inhabitants of the earth continued
nomadic, and without a literature, language would

* ' Philosophy of Universal History,' vol. iii. p. 4S3.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH.

303

alter at a rate very much beyond that which is found
to prevail since they have gathered into large com-
munities, each with its own treasure of written law,
legend, or history.

Further, it is obvious to remark that the whole argu-
ment turns upon a theory of language, which can
never be anything more than an hypothesis — a theory,
moreover, which ignores altogether the confusion of
Babel, ascribing as it does all the changes and diver-
sities of human speech to the operation of natural
causes. Those persons who believe the miracle re-
corded in Gen. xi. 1-9, will see that if the Divine fiat
produced in a moment of time a number of diversities
of speech, which in the natural course of things would
only have gradually been developed, language can-
not but present the appearance of being older than it
really is.

It seems, therefore, that nothing has really been as
yet discovered, either in the facts of history, or in those
of language, that militates against the chronological
scheme of Scripture, if we regard the Septuagint and
Samaritan versions as the best exj^onents of the orig-
inal text in respect of the genealogy of the Patriarchs
from Shem to Abraham. Whether the chronology of
these versions admits of further expansion ; whether,
since the chronologies of the Hebrew Bible, the Sa-
maritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint differ, we can
depend on any one of them ; or whether we must not
consider that this portion of revelation has been lost
to us by the mistakes of copyists or the intentional al-
terations of system atisers, it is not necessary at present
to determine. u Our treasure," as before observed, " is
in earthen vessels." The revealed Word of God has
been continued in the world in the same way as other
written compositions, by the multiplication of copies.
No miraculous aid is vouchsafed to the transcribers,
who are liable to make mistakes, and may not always
have been free from the design of bending Scripture to
their own views. That we have a wonderfully pure
and perfect text of the Pentateuch, considering its an-

304 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

tiquity, is admitted ; but doubts must ever attach to
the chronology, not only because in all ancient MSS.
numbers are especially liable to accidental corruption,
but also, and more especially, from the fact that there
is so wide a difference in this respect between the
Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Greek copies.* Still,
at present, we have no need to suppose that the num-
bers have in every case suffered. All the requirements
of profane history are sufficiently met by the adoption
of the Septuagint and Samaritan date for the Deluge ;
and this is the date which is really most authoritative,
since it has in its favour two out of the three ancient
versions.

II. An authentic character is denied to the Penta-
teuch on account of the narrative contained in it of the
great Flood. This narrative is viewed as the tradi-
tional representation of a real event, but as unhistoric
in most of its details, and more especially as untrue in
regard to the assertion which is so strongly made, that
all mankind, except a single family, were destroyed on
the occasion.! The Deluge, it is said, was local, affect-
ing only that portion of Asia in which were located the
Arians and the Semites. It did not extend to the
Egyptians, or to the Chinese, or to the Turanian races
generally. This conclusion is professedly drawn from
" the infallible linguistic science," J or, in other words,
from those views of the history of language, the changes
it has undergone, and the time occupied by them,
which have been just shown to be arbitrary and not
very tenable hypotheses. It is further regarded as con-
firmed by the alleged fact, that while among most of
the Semitic and Arian races there was a distinct and
clear tradition of the Flood, as among the Babylonians,
the Indians, the Armenians, the Phrygians, the Lithu-
anians, the Goths, the Celts, and the Greeks ; neither
in China, nor in Egypt, nor among the " old Turani-

* Although in the list of patriarchs from Shem to Abraham, the Samari-
tan and the Septuagint coincide, they differ widely in the preceding list from
Adam to Noah. The Samaritan has* there a term of years even shorter than
the Hebrew.

t Gen. vii. 21-23. % Bunseu, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 472, and p. 559.

Essay VL] THE PENTATEUCH. 395

ans" was any such tradition current. Here the argu-
ment is strong ; but it attains its strength by a combi-
nation of exaggeration on the one side, with understate-
ment on the other. It is not true that " we find allu-
sions to the Flood everywhere among the Iranians and
Semites."* The Flood does not appear in the Zenda-
vesta ; it was not, so far as is known, among the tra-
ditions of the Arabs, or the Phoenicians, or the Eomans,
or the Slaves. On the other hand, traditions of it were
not entirely wanting in China, in Egypt, or among the
Turanians.

The Chinese speak of a "first heaven" — an age of
innocence, when " the whole creation enjoyed a state
of happiness ; when everything was beautiful, every-
thing was good ; all beings were perfect in their kind ;"
whereto succeeded a " second heaven," introduced by a
great convulsion. " The pillars of heaven were broken —
the earth shook to its foundations — the heavens sunk
lower towards the north — the sun, the moon, and the
stars changed their motions — the earth fell to pieces ;
and the waters enclosed within its oosom hurst forth
with violence, and overflowed it. Man having rebelled
against heaven, the system of the universe was totally
disordered. The sun was eclipsed, the planets altered
their courses, and the grand harmony of nature was
disturbed."t

In Egypt, according to Plato, the teaching of the
priests was, not that there had been no Deluge, but that
there had been several. They believed that from time
to time, in consequence of the anger of the Gods, the
earth was visited by a terrible catastrophe. The agent
of destruction was sometimes fire, sometimes water.
In the conflagrations, all countries were burnt up but
Egypt, which was protected by the Nile ; and in the
deluges, all were submerged except Egypt, where rain
never fell. The last catastrophe, they said, had been a
deluge ; it took place above 8000 years before Solon,
and not only swept away the Greeks, as they were
themselves aware, but permanently submerged a vast

* Buusen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 464
t Faber, ' Hone Mosaics,' ch. iv.

iv. pp. 147, 143.

30Q AIDS TO FAITU. [Essay VL

island in the Atlantic Ocean, previously the seat of a
great conquering monarchy.* It does not destroy the
traditional character of these latter statements, that they
are coupled with a theory of repeated mundane catas-
trophes ; neither does it much lessen the value of the
evidence, in the case of a people making such absurd
pretensions to antiquity as the Egyptians, that Egypt is
supposed to have been exempt from the general ruin.
M. Bunsen admits that the oldest traditions of Egypt
" seem here and there to retain the echoes of a knowl-
edge of some violent convulsions in nature,"! while he
denies that these traditions constitute a reminiscence of
the historical Flood. It is at least as reasonable to hold
that the one convulsion of which they had some real
knowledge was that great catastrophe, and that in re-
gard to the rest they merely represented historically the
conclusions at which they had arrived by speculation.

"With regard to the belief of the Turanian races, it
may be true that those of Europe and Asia have no tra-
ditions of a Deluge among them, although this point has
hardly been as yet sufficiently established ; but if we
hold (as is now commonly done):): the Malays to be a Tu-
ranian offshoot, and the 'Polynesian islanders to be Ma-
lays, then it must be allowed that traces of a belief in
the Deluge exist also in this ethnic family. "Tradi-
tions of the Deluge," says Mr. Ellis, " have been found
to exist among the natives of the South Sea Islands,
from the earliest periods of their history. . . . The
principal facts are the same in the traditions prevailing
among the inhabitants of the different groups, although
they differ in several minor particulars. In one group
the accounts stated, that in ancient times Taarsa, the
principal god according to their mythology, being angry
with men on account of their disobedience to his will,
overturned the world into the sea, when the earth sunk
in the waters, excepting a few projecting points, which,
remaining above its surface, constituted the present clus-

* 'Timseua,' p. 21. t 'EgypV vol. iv. p. 559.

X M. Muller, in the 'Philosophy of Universal History/ vol. iii. pp. 403-
429; 'Languages of the Seat of War,' p. 110, 1st edition.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 307

ter of islands. The memorial preserved by the inhabi-
tants of Eimeo states, that after the inundation of the
land, when the water subsided, a man landed from a
canoe near Tiataepua in their island, and erected an al-
tar in honour of his god. The tradition which prevails
in the Leeward Islands is intimately connected with the
island of Baiatea." Here the story is that a fisherman
disturbed the sea-god with his hooks, whereupon the god
determined to destroy mankind. The fisherman, how-
ever, obtained mercy, and was directed to take refuge
in a certain small islet, whither he betook himself with
his wife, his child, one friend, and specimens of all the
domestic animals. The sea then rose, and submerged
the other islands, destroying all the inhabitants. But
the fisherman and his companions were unharmed, and
afterwards removing from their islet to Raiatea became
the progenitors of the present people.* Thus, if the
South Sea Islanders belong to the Turanian family, it
would seem that that family, no less than the Arian and
Semitic, has reminiscences of the Great Catastrophe
which once befel mankind.f

The result is, that there is no marked difference, in
respect of traditions of the Deluge, between the different
races of men. JSTo race is without some tradition on the
subject, wThile in none is the tradition spread universally
among all the nations into which the race subdivides.
Various circumstances have caused the event to be viv-
idly or faintly apprehended, to be stored in the memory
of a nation, or to be allowed to fade from it. If the Se-
mitic tradition is the clearest and most circumstantial,
while the Turanian is the dimmest and slightest, it is
probably because the Turanians generally were without
a literature, while among the Semites the tradition took
a written form early. If in Egypt, while the Deluge is
not unknown, it makes little figure, notwithstanding the
early use of letters in that country, it is perhaps because
the Egyptians did not choose to keep it in mind, since,

* ' Polynesian Researches,' vol. ii. pp. 57-59.

t The Mexicans and Peruvians, who had very clear traditions of the
Flood, were also probably of Turanian origin.

308 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

in their desire to be considered autochthonous and of
immense antiquity, they seem to have determinately
severed all the links which connected them with their
primitive Asiatic abodes.* If, on the contrary, among
the Arians, though they had no very early literature,
the reminiscence is vivid, it may be ascribed to the
liveliness, impressibility, and poetic tone of their minds,
which such an event as the Deluge was calculated to af-
fect strongly, and to their comparative honesty, which
led them to cherish in most cases the traditions uniting
them with primitive times.

III. The objections taken to the ethnology of Gen-
esis are limited to two. It is allowed that a high anti-
quity, and a great historical value, belong to the Toldoth
Beni Noah, or " Book of the generations of the sons of
Noah," which forms the tenth chapter of the First Book
of Moses. But it is maintained that in its present state
this chapter is the work of a " compiler," who misunder-
stood his materials, and that it requires correction from
the better knowledge of the moderns. f The two mis-
takes which are especially charged on the document
are — first, that, by making Canaan a son of Ham, it
connects the Canaanites ethnically with the Egyptians,
whereas they were an entirely distinct people, not Ham-
ites, but Semites ; and secondly, that, by declaring Cush
to have begotten Nimrod, it makes that conqueror and
his kingdom Ethiopian, whereas they were in reality
Cosssean, and so Turanian or Scythic. In the latter case
it is supposed that the " compiler" was misled by a re-
semblance of words ; in the former, that he misinter-
preted a geographical fact ethnically.

But the latest research tends to vindicate the ethnol-

* " The evidence of the Egyptians," says Mr. Stuart Poole, " as to the

primeval history of their race an'd country is extremely indefinite There

is a very short and extremely obscure time of tradition, and at no great dis-
tance from the earliest date at -which it can be held to end we come upon the
clear light of history in the days of the Pyramids. The indications are of a
sudden change of seat, and the settlement in Egypt of a civilized race, which,
either wishing to be believed autochthonous, or having lost all ties that could
keep up the traditions of its first dwelling-place, filled up the commencement
of its history with materials drawn from mythology." (' Biblical Dictionary/
vol. i. p. 507.)

t Bunsen, ' Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 417.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 30g

ogy of Genesis in both the disputed cases. The sup-
posed Semitic character of the Canaanites rests upon
two grounds — first, their presumed identity with the
Phoenicians, and secondly, the Semitic etymology of
certain Canaanitish names — e.g. Melchisedek, Abime-
lech, Adonibezek, Mamre, Eshcol, Ivirjath-Arba, &c.
This last argument is undoubtedly important, though it
is far from decisive. For, firstly, language is not a cer-
tain sign of race, since occasionally a nation has adopted
a completely foreign tongue. Secondly, the names, as
given in the Hebrew Scriptures, are perhaps not
Canaanitish words at all, but only the Semitic equiva-
lents of the native (Hamitic) terms. Thirdly, the true
stock of the Canaanites may have been Hamitic, yet
even before the time of Abraham they may have re-
ceived a Semitic infusion from the valley of the Eu-
phrates; and Semitic names may thus have been intro-
duced among them. As for the other argument, though
it has great names in its favour, there is really very
little to be said for it. Phoenicia, as a country, is dis-
tinguishable from Canaan, in which it may, perhaps,
have been included, but of which it was at any rate
only a part ; and the Phoenician people present in many
respects a strong and marked contrast to the Canaanites,
so that there is great reason to believe that they were
an entirely different race.* That their ethnic charac-
ter was really Hamitic seems to be indicated by the
Babylonian tradition in Eupolemus, f that Canaan was
the grandfather of Cush and Mestraim (Mizraim). It
is further evidenced by the names of various places in
their country, as Baalbek, " the house of Baal," where
lek is the Egyptian root found in Atarbechis, "the

* See the writer's ' Herodotus/ vol. iv. pp. 243-245, where the point is
argued at length. " The Canaanites," it is noted, " are fierce and intractable
warriors, rejoicing in the prancing steeds and chariots of iron, neither given
to commerce nor to any of the arts of peace ; the Phoenicians are quiet and
peaceable, a nation of traffickers, skilful in navigation and in the arts bolh
useful and ornamental ; unwarlike except at sea, and wholly devoted to com-
merce. Again, whereas between the real Canaanites and the Jews there was
deadly and perpetual hostility, until the former were utterly rooted out and

destroyed, the Jews and Phoenicians were on terms of perpetual amity, — an
amity encouraged by the best princes, who would scarcely have contracted a
friendship with the accursed race."
t ' Fragm. Hist. Gr.' vol. iii. p. 212.

310 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

house of Athor " — Maratlms, which seems to be Martu,
the Hamitic term for "the West" — Beth-shan, which
in Semitic was Beth-shemesh, " the house of the sun,"
&c. Finally, it is thought to be absolutely proved by
the Hittite names, which occur abundantly in the As-
syrian inscriptions, and which are found to be unmistak-
ably of a Hamitic type and formation.

The Cushite descent of the Babylonians has still
more ample evidence in its favour. Linguistic research,
harmonising in this instance at once with classical tradi-
tion and with the Scriptural account, shows the early
Babylonians to have been, not only Hamitic, but de-
terminately of Cushite origin. * All the ancient Baby-
lonian documents are in a dialect, the vocabulary of
which has a closer connexion with the native languages
of Abyssinia than with any other known form of speech.
Nor is this a mere coincidence. The evidence of monu-
ments (Himyaric, Chaldean, and Susian) shows, that a
homogeneous race was spread in very ancient times
from the country upon the Upper Nile, along the
southern coast of Arabia, to the shores of the Persian
Gulf, and thence into Susiana, whence it probably
passed, by way of Gedrosia, to India. M. Bunsen
decides that " an Asiatic Kush (or Ethiopia) exists only
in the imagination of Biblical interpreters, and is the
child of their despair. " f But ancient lore and modern
research are equally against this view. Homer knew
the Ethiopians to be "divided," and to dwell "towards
the rising and the setting sun. " % Hesiod made Mem-
non, the son of the Dawn, and the traditional founder
of Susa, an Ethiopian king. § Pindar taught that this
same Memnon brought an army of Ethiopians to the
relief of Troy. || Herodotus was told of Asiatic Ethio-
pians as contained within the Persian empire, and
assigned them their place in the satrapies of Darius, ^f
and in the army of Xerxes.** Ephorus gave all the

* Sir H. Rawlinson, in the writer's 'Herodotus,' vol. i. p. 442, note: com-
pare Kalisch, ' Comment, on Genesis,' p. 174, E. T.
f ' Philosophy of Universal History,' vol. iii. p. 191.
% ' Odyssey,' i. 23, 24. § ' Theogonia,' 9S4, 9S5.

| 'Neniea,' iii. G2, 63. TI Ilerod. iii. 94. ** Ibid. vii. 70.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 311

shores of the Erythraean Sea, or Southern Ocean, to the
Ethiopians ;* and so, according to Strabo, did the
ancient Greek writers generally, f The names Kissia,
and Kosssea, Ivusan, $ and lvutch or Kooch, which
have clung to portions of the south coast of Asia, from
the time of Herodotus to the present day, confirm the
classical belief — a belief which is further evidenced by
the genealogists, who almost universally connect Belus,
the mythic progenitor of the Babylonians, with iEgyp-
tus and Libya. § Thus the Asiatic Ethiopia, which is
mentioned more than once in Scripture, J is no guess
or myth, but an established fact ; and to this Ethiopia
it appears that both early Babylon and the neighbour-
ing countries of Susiana and Southern Arabia belonged.

The "Toldoth Beni Noah," therefore, instead of
proving incorrect on the two points where its accuracy
has been most recently challenged, is found in regard
to them singularly to accord with the latest results of
philological and ethnological research.^ Indeed that
document, which has been well called "the most
authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of
races," ** is continually receiving fresh illustration and
confirmation from the progress of modern discovery,
and is probably destined to become, as time goes on, a
continually stronger evidence of the historic accuracy
of Genesis.

IV. Of all the attempts made to invalidate the his-
torical character of the Pentateuch, the boldest is that
which, starting from an observation of the resemblance
of the names given in the two genealogies of the Seth-
ites and the Cainites,tt proceeds to argue that they are

* Ap. Strab. i. 2, § 29, t Strab. i. 2, § 27.

% Kusan was the name given to the country east of Kermau throughout
the whole of the Sassanian period.

§ Pherecyd. Fr. 40; Charax Perg. ap. Steph. Byz. s. voc. Atyvirros;
Apollodor. ii. 1, § 4; Eupolemus ap. Alex. Polyhist. "Fr. 3; Johann. Antio-
chen. Fr. 6, § 15.

|| Gen. ii. 13; Ezek. xxxviii. 5.

*![ In connexion with this subject Mr. R. S. Poole's articles on * The Ca-
naanites,' and ' Cush' in Dr. Smith's ' Biblical Dictionary,' are recommended
to the reader's attention.

** Sir H. Rawlinson in the ' Journal of the Asiatic Society,' vol. xv. p. 230.

ft Gen. iv. 17-22; Gem v. 3-32.

12

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

really representations of one and the same list, with
variations in the order and in the orthography, which
variations destroy the authority of both, and show that
nothing has come down to us but a document founded
on "a misunderstanding of the earliest records."* "Not
having one tradition, but two," we have, it is argued,
in reality, " no historical account." We may, there-
fore, suppose that neither list contains any actual
genealogy at all. "We may view the names as ideal or
mythical, significative of notions, nations, or epochs ;
and we may then construct a history of the Old World
according to our fancy, with very little check indeed
upon our faculty of invention.

JSTow the facts of the case are simply, that^ in the
two genealogies, which differ both at the beginning and
at the end, six consecutive names occur, of which two
are identical, while the remaining four have more or
less of resemblance. These names are Cain, Enoch,
Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, and Lamech in the one list;
Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and
Lamech in the other. The names Enoch and Lamech
(it will be seen) occur in both lists ; of the rest, Cain
resembles Cainan ; Irad, Jared; Mehujael, Mahalaleel ;
and Methusael, Methuselah. The resemblance, how-
ever, is in the Hebrew scarcely so great as in the Au-
thorized Version. Irad differs from Jared by an initial
letter of peculiar importance, the Hebrew am (s), which
had a strong guttural sound, and is rarely lost, f Maha-
laleel differs from Mehujael by one entire element out
of the two which make it up ; it is really no nearer to
Mehujael than Theodosius to Theophilus, or Jeroboam
to Jerubbaal. In Methusael, and Methuselah, again,
the concluding element is different, there being prob-
ably no connection between the sael or sha?el of the
one and the selah or shelach of the other. Further,
there is a considerable difference in the order which

* 'Egypt's Place,' vol. iv. p. 395.

t In the LXX. the ain is represented by the Greek 7. There the two names
scarcely retain any resemblance at all, being respectively Iared ('IapeS) and
Gaidad (TafidS). The copies used by the LXX. evidently had n in the place
of-.

Essay VI.] TIIE PENTATEUCH. 3-^3

the names hold in the two lists ; and of this difference
no account has been even attempted. The second name
in the Cainite list is the fourth in the list of the Seth-
ites ; and conversely the fourth among the Cainites is a
name resembling the second name among the Sethi tes.
Hence, if we allow the names to correspond, we must
say that the two lists agree in no single relationship,
except only that of the last pair. Cain is the son of
Adam and father of Enoch ; but Cainan is the son of
Enos and father of Mahalaleel. Enoch the Cainite is
the son of Cain and father of Irad ; but Enoch the
Sethite is the son of Jared and father of Methuselah.
Irad is son of Enoch and father of Mehujael ; but Jared
is son of Mahalaleel and father of Enoch. Finally,
Methusael is son of Mehujael, but Methuselah of Enoch ;
and Lamech the Sethite is father of Noah, but Lamech
the Cainite, of Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain. Altogeth-
er, while the amount of resemblance in the two lists is
certainly remarkable, the amount of diversity is such
as very clearly to distinguish them from one another.
Where confusion was most likely to ensue — that is to
say, in the cases of the two identical names of Enoch
and Lamech — the narrative in one or the other list is
fuller and more detailed than usual, apparently for the
very purpose of guarding against the mistake of identi-
fication. All, therefore, that can fairly be concluded
is, that in the two families of the Sethites and the
Cainites, as in the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah,*
similar appellations, and to some extent the same
appellations, prevailed. It would seem that at first
men were slow to invent new names, and either used
the old names over again or modified them slightly.
Thus we have Enos and Enoch, Adam and Adah, f
Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cam, where no one suggests an
identification. Probably names were considered of
great importance, and the experiment of an entirely
new name was not readily made.

* Taking the five consecutive and contemporary monarchs of these two
kingdoms, who follow upon Ahab and Jehoshaphat, we find three names
common to the two lists.

t The resemblance is less in the Hebrew, but still it is real.
14

314 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

The mythical character of this same portion of the
Biblical history has been further based upon certain
supposed etymologies. Seth, we are informed, repre-
sents, not a man, but God Himself, since Set or Sutekh
was an old Oriental root for God, and Set or Suti con-
tinued to be an Egyptian deity.* Enos is the same as
Adam, since in Aramaic it means " man," as Adam
does in Hebrew, f Neither are real names of persons,
but only ideal appellations for the first founder of our
race. Enoch, " the seer of God," represents a religious
period intervening between the time of the marauder
Cain, and that of the agricultural builder of cities Irad.f
At the same time he is "the solar year," since the
number of years which he is said to have lived coin-
cides exactly with the number of days in that division
of time.§ Cain and Irad are the respective typos of
the nomadic shepherd races and the agricultural dwell-
ers in towns. The other patriarchs also represent
epochs; and ISahor, the grandfather of Abraham, is
the first real Biblical man.jj

It is clear that all history whatsoever may be made
to evaporate under such treatment as this. If we may
guess at etymologies, and then at once assume our
guesses to be coincident with truth ; if we may regard
all significant names as mythic, and the personages to
whom they are assigned as ideal, there is no portion of
the world's annals which may not with a very little in-
genuity be transferred to the region of myth. A witty
writer noted some ten years since the certainty that, if
such views prevailed, a famous passage from the eccle-
siastical history of our own time would be relegated by
posterity to that shadowy region; for how could it be
doubted that such names as Newman, Wiseman, Mas-
terman, Philpotts, Wilde, were " fictitious appellations
invented by an allegorist, either to set forth certain
qualities or attributes of certain persons whose true
names were concealed, or to embody certain tendencies

* Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 20S. t Ibid. p. 385.

X Ibid. p. GOO. § Itid. p. 389.

1 Ibid. p. 409.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 315

of the times, or represent certain party characteris-
tics?"* Similarly it might be argued that Athenian
history, from Draco to Pericles, is mythical — that Draco
was intended to represent the bloody and cruel spirit
of the old aristocracy, Cylon their crooked courses,
Solon the first establishment of a sole authority (for it
would seem to be thought allowable to draw a deriva-
tion from a cognate dialect), Pisistratus the usurpation
in which a chief "persuaded cm army to help him, Hip-
pias,-Hipparchus, and Thessalus, the time when, with the
aid of Thcssaly, the cavalry service was first fully organ-
ised, Isagoras the establishment of democracy, Clisthe-
nes the triumph of physical strength, Themistocles the
ascendancy of law, Aristides the completion of the best
form of government, Pericles the age when Athens at-
tained her full glory. "Where names are significant,
and their etymology is accurately known, it is generally
easy to bend them into agreement even with the actual
history of the time. How much more easy must it be,
when their signification is unknown, to affix a meaning
on plausible grounds which shall square with our his-
torical fancies !

But, it is said, the histories of all other nations run
up into myth. Can the Hebrews be a solitary excep-
tion ? This is simply to ash : Can there be direct reve-
lation at all; or, in other words, can God or a Divine
messenger speak to man face to face, as the prophets
declare they were spoken to ? If He can, there is cer-
tainly nothing to prevent the subject matter of His rev-
elation from being historical. And the beginnings of
human history might in "this way be as well communi-
cated as any other facts, past, present, or future. Kor
is it at all impossible that the true history may have
been handed down in one line by an undefiled tradi-
tion, while in all other lines it was corrupted. The
laws which govern human action are general, not uni-

* 'Eclipse of Faith,' pp. 347, 348. The significance of two of the names
belonging to this passage of our history gave occasion to the following coup-
let, written by a living scholar at the time of the "Papal Aggression : —
"Cum Sapiente Tins nostras juravit in aras:
Impius lieu Sapiens insipiensque Pius ! "

310

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI.

versal ; and an exception is so much a matter of course
that some regard it as "proving the rule." It is un-
philosophical to assume, merely on the analogy of other
nations, that the Hebrew "beginnings" are mythic.
At the least, they ought first to be formally compared
with the u beginnings " of those other nations, and only
pronounced mythic if found to resemble them. Such a
comparison has not been made at all fully as yet ; and,
if it were made, would exhibit the most striking diver-
sity.* The " beginnings " of other races have an air of
extravagance about them, a tone of quaintness and
grotesqueness utterly alien from the " Origines" of the
Hebrews. In the former gods have their heads cut off,
or devour their children, or undergo marvellous trans-
formations, or marry their mothers, or are fished up
out of the sea by fishermen, or are otherwise set before
us in ludicrous aspects, which take away all solemnity
and seriousness from the narrative. How different
from this is the simple and awful grandeur of Genesis !
What a deep and solemn earnestness greets us in the
very first words ! What sustained seriousness do we
find throughout ! How evident that we are on holy
ground, in the hands of a writer who does not dare to
jest or sport with things divine, who is no fanciful alle-
gorizer, weaving quaint fables to delight us as he in-
structs, but one who speaks as in the presence of God,
with a simple reverent solemnity, incompatible with
any conscious departure from literal truth ! It is im-
possible to illustrate this subject to any large extent
here ; but the reader may gain, from the two passages
placed below in parallel columns, a tolerably fair notion
of the extent to which the " Origines" of other nations
differ in tone from Genesis.

Account of tiie Creation from Account of the Creation feom

Beeosus.I Genesis.^

"In the beginning all was "In the beginning God cre-

darkness and water, and therein ated the heaven and the earth.

* M. Bunscn makes a very incomplete comparison in the fourth volume
of bis ' Egypt ' (pp. 364-375). He cannot, however, even proceed so far as he
has gone without being struck with the diversity here spoken of. (See p. 374.)

t Ap. Syncell. ' Chronograph.' vol. i. p. 53 ; compare Euseb. ' Cbron. Can.'
i. 2; pp. 11, 12, ed. Mai. ' % Gen. i. 1-8; 24-27; ii. 7.

Essay VI.]

THE PENTATEUCH.

317

were generated monstrous ani-
mals of strange and peculiar
forms. There were men with
two wings, and others even with
four, and with two faces: and
others with two heads, a man's
and a woman's, on one body;
and there were men with the
heads and the horns of goats,
and men with hoofs like horses,
and some with the upper parts
of a man joined to the lower
parts of a horse, like centaurs;
and there were bulls with hu-
man heads, dogs with four
bodies and with fishes' tails,
men and horses with dogs'
heads, &c, &c. A woman ruled
them all, by name Omorka,
which is the same as ' the sea.'

"And Belus appeared, and
split the woman in twain ; and
of the one half of her he made
the heaven, and of the other
half the earth; and the beasts
that were in her he caused to
perish. And he split the dark-
ness, and divided the heaven
and the earth asunder, and put
the world in order; and the
animals that could not bear the
light perished.

And the earth was without form
and void ; and darkness was up-
on the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.

"And God said, Let there
be light; and there was light.
And God saw the light that it
was good ; and God divided the
light from the darkness. And
God called the light Day; and
the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morn-
ing were the first day.

"And God said, Let there be
a firmament in the midst of the
waters; and let it divide the
waters from the waters. And
God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the
waters which were above the
firmament ; and it was so. And
God called the firmament Heav-
en. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.

" And God said. Let the earth
bring forth the living creature
after his kind, cattle and creep-
ing thing and beast of the earth
after his kind; and it was so.
And God made the beast of the
earth after his kind, and cattle
after their kind, and everything

318

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay YI.

that creepeth upon the earth af-
ter his kind : and God saw that
it was good.
"Belus, upon this, seeing that "And God said, Let us make
the earth was desolate, yet teem- man in our image, after our like-
ing with productive power, com- ness ; and let them have domin-
manded one of the gods to cut ion over the fish of the sea, and
off his head, and to mix the over the fowl of the air, and
blood, which flowed forth, with over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and form men therewith, earth, and over every creeping
and beasts that could bear the thing that creepeth upon the
light. So man was made, and earth. So God created man in
was intelligent, being a partaker his own image ; in the image of
of the Divine wisdom." God created he him; male and

female created he them.

"And the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils
the* breath of life. And man
became a living soul."

V. The longevity of the Patriarchs appears to
modern critics " at variance with all the laws of hu-
man and animal organism," and therefore " as contra-
ry to common sense as the notion of there being any
real chronology in astronomical cycles of hundreds
of thousands of years." * Men, we are told, cannot
ever have lived more than 150, or, at theinost, 200 years ;
and a document which assigns them lives of 300, 600,
800, and even 900 years, must be unhistorical, and is
either, in respect of its numbers, worthless, or to be
explained in some not very obvious way. This argu-
ment is supposed to be drawn from physiology, another
of the " infallible sciences," which are held to lay
down laws, not only for our practical guidance at the
present day, but for our intellectual belief as to the
occurrences of all past ages. In truth, however, the
science of physiology has not spoken on the point
before us. Its problem has been, not what length of
time it is possible for man ever to have lived, but how
long it is possible for him now to live under the present

* Bunsen, 'Eoypt/ vol. iv. p. 891; compare Winer, < Realwb'rterbuch/
vol. ii. p. 207; Bauer, 'Hebr. Mythologie,' vol. i. p. 11)7; Bredow, 'Uuter-
suchungen,' vol. i. p. 1, &c.»

Essay VI.] TIIE PENTATEUCH. 31q

circumstances of the earth, and. in the present known
condition of human bodies. And even this question it
can only answer empirically. It finds the body to be
a machine which wears out by use; but it fails to
discover any definite rate at which the process of wear-
ing out must proceed. In this difficulty, comparative
physiology does not help it, for the law of longevity in
the brute creation is capricious in the extreme. All
the proposed standards of measurement — the period of
gestation, the time occupied in growth, the size of the
full-grown body — when applied to species severally,
fail in certain instances. Physiology then can only
say : These human bodies are mortal ; death is inevi-
table ; and, so far as modern testimony goes, men do
not seem now able to resist the tendency to decay be-
yond the term of 150, or at the utmost 200 years.
But the possible duration of life, when the species was
but recently created, and had its vigour unimpaired by
the taint of hereditary disease, is beyond the cog-
nizance of physiological science, which, by the mouth
of its most celebrated professors, declines to pronounce
a positive judgment. The great Haller, when led to
speak on the subject, declared the problem one which
could not be solved, on account of the absence of suffi-
cient data," wrhile Buffon accepted the Scriptural
account, and thought he could see physical reasons
why life should in the early ages have been so greatly
extended, f

It cannot, therefore, be said with truth that the
longevity of the Patriarchs is " at variance wTith all "
— or indeed with any — " of the laws of human and
animal organism." We do not know on what longevity
depends ; wxe could not possibly tell d priori whether
man, or any other animal, would live one, ten, twenty,
fifty, a hundred, or a thousand years. The whole
question is one of fact, and so of evidence. Men now
do not, except in very rare instances, exceed 100 years.

* "Problema ob paucitatem datorum insolubile." ('Element. Physios.'
viii. § 21.)

+ ' Histoire Naturelle de l'llommo,' CEuvres, vol. iv. pp. 33S-36L

320 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VI.

"Was this always so, or was it once different? The
Bible answers this question for us very clearly and
decidedly, showing us that human life gradually de-
clined, beginning with a term little short of a millen-
nium, and by degrees contracting, till, in Moses' time,
it had reached (apparently) its present limits — the
days of man's age having become then " threescore
years and ten," and only a few, "by reason of
strength," reaching to fourscore years.* Does other
historical testimony really run counter to this, and
render it even hard to believe ? or is it not the fact
that all the evidence we have is in accordance with
the Scriptural narrative, and strongly confirmatory of
the statement that in the early ages human life was
prolonged very much beyond its present term ?

In the Hindoo accounts there are four ages of the
world. In the first, man was free from diseases, and
attained to the age of 400 years; in the second
the term of life was reduced to 300 years ; in the
third it became 200 ; and in the fourth 100. The
Babylonian traditions gave to their early monarchs
reigns of between two and three thousand years. The
Greeks told of a time when men were children till they
reached a hundred.-)- Pliny mentions a number of
authors, according to whom men had lived 300, 500,
600, and 800 years. J Josephus relates that the
Egyptian, Phoenician, Babylonian, and Grecian his-
torians united in declaring that there had been cases of
persons living nearly 1000 years. § It seems to be
quite certain that a very wide-spread tradition existed
in the ancient world, to the effect that the term of
human life had been greatly abbreviated since man's
first appearance upon the earth.

VI. The duration of the sojourn in Egypt, whether
taken as 430 years, according to the apparent meaning
of Ex. xii. 40, 41, or as 215 years, according to the
traditional explanation of that passage, is thought to
be unhistorical because of the impossibility (as it is

* Ps xc. 10. The title of this psalm is " a prayer of Moses, the man of
God." t Hesiod, < Op. et Dies/ 130, 131.

; * Hist. Nat.' vii. 48. § ' Ant. Jud.' i. 3.

Essay VI.] TILE PENTATEUCH. 32J

said) of a family of seventy persons having, even in
the longer of the two periods, multiplied into two
millions of souls. So strongly is this difficulty felt,
that for a theologian not to perceive its force, is regard-
ed as " one of the most melancholy signs of the times,"
reducing modern exegesis to a level with the absurd-
ities of Babbinical comment.* The chronology, it is
argued, must of necessity require a very considerable
expansion ; and this it is proposed to give by sub-
stituting for the 430 years of Moses and St. Paul, f
1400, or (more exactly) 1427 years (!) as the real
length of the interval between the going down of Jacob
into Egypt and the Exodus under Moses. $ But it is
more easy to make a vague and general charge of ab-
surdity against an adversary than to point out in what
the absurdity with which he is taxed consists. § No one
asserts it to be naturally probable that such a company
as went down with Jacob into Egypt would in 215, or
even in 430 years, have become a nation possessing
600,000 fighting men. Orthodox commentators simply
say that such an increase of numbers was possible even
in the shortest of these terms. They note that Jacob
brought into Egypt fifty-one grandsons, and that if,
under the special blessing of God so repeatedly
promised to Abraham, || his male descendants had con-
tinued to increase at the same rate, they wrould long
within the specified period have reached the required
number. In point of fact, they would in the fifth
generation have exceeded 850,000, and in the sixth
have amounted to six millions.^ If God can bless

* Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. i. p. 179. t Gal. iii. 17.

X Bunsen, 'Egypt,' vol. iv. pp. 492, 493.

§ When M. Bunsen condescends to particularize, he falls himself into a
remarkable error. Baumgarten had observed that, "if we deduct from the
70 souls who came into Egypt 14, viz. Jacob, his 12 sons, and Dinah, there
remain 56 pair who produced children." M. Bunsen says this reminds him
of Falstaff's mode of reckoning. But the reckoning is perfectly correct, since
the " 56 pair" who remain consist of the 56 male grandchildren and great-
grandchildren of Jacob (who, together with the 14 deducted, make up the 70
souls), and their wives, who were additional to the 70. (See Gen. xlvi. 8-27.)

I Gen. xii. 2 ; xiii. 16 ; xvii. 4-6 ; xxii. 17.

T[ The average increase of the males in the two generations had been more
than sevenfold each generation. A sevenfold increase would have given
857,157 males in the fifth generation, and 6,000j099 in the sixth.
14*

322 AID3 T0 FAITH. [EssayVI.

with increase, if fecundity and life are His gifts, He
might, by making every marriage fruitful and every
child grow up, raise, even with greater rapidity than
the' record declares to have been done, a family into a
nation. At the same time, as we are bound not to
exa^o-erate the Divine interference with the ordinary
course of nature beyond what is actually stated or
implied in Scripture, it ought to be borne in mind that
we have no need to suppose the 600,000 fighting men
who quitted Egypt, though they are all called Israel-
ites, to have been all descendants of Jacob. The mem-
bers of the Patriarch's family came down into Egypt
with their households.* What the size of the patri-
archal households was, we may gather from that of
Abraham, whose " trained servants born in his house "
amounted to 318.f Nor was this an exceptional case.
Esau met Jacob on his return from Padan-aram with
400 men, who were probably his servants, % and Jacob
at the same meeting had such a number that he
could divide them into two "bands," or "armies"
(nisms). § It is not unlikely that the whole company
which entered Egypt with Jacob amounted to above
a thousand souls. || As all were circumcised,^ all
would doubtless be considered Israelites ; and their
descendants would be reckoned to the tribes of their
masters. Again, we must remember that polygamy
prevailed among the Hebrews; and that though po-
lygamy, if a nation lives by itself, is not favourable
to rapid increase, yet, if foreign wives can be obtained
in any number,** it is an institution by means of
which population may be greatly augmented. A
recent Shah of Persia is said to have left at his death
nearly three thousand descendants ; and it is a well-
known fact that one of his sons had a body-guard of

* Gen. xlv. 18 ; Ex. i. 1. + Gen. xiv. 14.

X Gen. xxxii. 6. § Gen. xxxii. 7.

|| Kurtz thinks they must have consisted of ''several thousands." (' Hist,
of Old Covenant,' vol. ii. p. 149, E. T.)

If Gen. xvii. 12.

** The Israelites could probably have obtained wives from the lower castes
of the Egyptians j also from the Midianites (Ex. ii. 21), the Libyans, and
others.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 323

sixty grown men, who all called him father.* Egypt,
moreover, was a country where both men and animals
are said to have been remarkably prolific ; f where,
therefore, natural law would have tended in the same
direction as the special action of Divine Providence at
this time. These considerations do not indeed reduce
the narrative within the category of ordinary occur-
rences ; but they diminish considerably from its ex-
traordinariness. They show that at any rate there is
no need to extend the period of the sojourn beyond the
430 years of the Hebrew text, unless we seek to de-
prive the increase of that special and exceptional
character which is markedly assigned to it by the
sacred historian. $

It is further maintained, that, even apart from the
entire question of the rapid increase of the Israelites in
Egypt, the Biblical number, 430, cannot be historical,
because it is the exact double of the period immediate-
ly preceding it, that, namely, between Abraham's en-
trance into Canaan and Jacob's journey into Egypt.
It is " repugnant," wTe are told, " to any sound critical
view," to believe the one period to have really been ex-
actly the double of the other.g The nature and ground
of the repugnancy are not stated ; but apparently the
principle assumed must be, that numerical coincidences
are in no case historical, and that where they occur we
are justified in assuming that one or other of the two
numbers is purely artificial—the invention of a writer
not honest enough to admit his ignorance. But is this
principle really sound ? Will there be no numerical
coincidences in historical chronology? What, then,
shall we say to the ready acceptance by the writer
who takes this view, of a statement made by Manetho,

* Sir H. Rawlinson in the writer's 'Herodotus,' vol. i. p. 277.

t Aristot. « Hist. An.' vii. 4 ; Strab. xv. 1, § 22 ; Pliu. ' H. K' vii. 3 ;
Senec. ' Qmest. Nat.' iii. 25 : Columell. < de Re Rust.' iii. 8.

% " And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly,
and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty ; and the land was nlled~with
them." (Ex. i. 7.) " But the more they afflicted them the more they multi-
plied and grew ; and they (i.e. the Egyptians) were grieved because of the
people of Israel." (lb. verse 12; compare also verse 20.)

§ Bunsen, ' Egypt's Place,' vol. i. p. 173.

324 AID9 T0 FAITH. [Essay YL

that during a certain period of 151 years there reigned
in different parts of Egypt two contemporary dynasties
consisting of exactly forty-eight kings each ? Yet this
is exhibited as part of a " clear historical picture " in
the very same work which proclaims the belief in a
less exact coincidence repugnant to all sound criti-
cism.* The truth is, that a certain number of these
coincidences will be presented by the historical chro-
nology of any nation. For instance, from the com-
mencement of the Persian to the end of the Pelopon-
nesian war — a very marked period of Grecian History
— was eighty-six years ; and from the end of the Pelo-
ponnesian wrar to the termination of the struggle be-
tween Sparta and Thebes — the next marked period —
was exactly half the time, or forty-three years. At
Rome, from the beginning of the disturbances caused
by the Gracchi to the first civil war between Sylla and
Marius was forty-four years, and from the breaking out
of this war to the death of Julius Csesar was likewise
forty-four years. (It was also exactly forty-four years
from the death of Julius Csesar to the reputed year of
the birth of Christ.) In the Mohammedan Caliphate
the family of Mohammed occupied the throne from b.c.
632 to b.c. 661, or (inclusively) thirty years ; and the
succeeding dynasty of the Ommiades held it from b.c.
660 to b.c 750, or just ninety years, thrice the time of
their predecessors. Again, in the portion of Jewish
history with respect to which there is no dispute, the
length of the period of independence intervening be-
tween the Syrian and the Roman servitudes is exactly
equal to that of the servitude under Pome, which
began with Antipater and terminated with the de-
struction of Jerusalem by Titus.f But it is needless
to multiply instances. Common sense assures us that
such accidental coincidences must occasionally take
place ; and no chronology claiming to be historical is
to be rejected on account of them, unless they are of

* Bunsen, • Egypt,' vol. iv. p. 510.

t Judas Maccabaeus revolted B.C. 16G. Antipater was made Procurator
of Judaea by Julius Caesar in b.c. 48. Jerusalem was destroyed a.d. 70. But
106-48=118, and 4S+70=11S.

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH. 325

more frequent occurrence in it than can "be accounted
for by the doctrine of chances. It is not pretended
that they are frequent in the Pentateuch ; nor indeed
in the whole of the five books of Moses is there any
other instance of a recurring number that has given
rise to any suspicion.

18. It appears, then, from this whole review, that
there is nothing in the history of the world, so far as it
is yet known, that forms even a serious objection to
the authenticity of the Pentateuch. Were we bound
down to the numbers of the Hebrew text in regard to
the period between the Flood and Abraham, we should,
indeed, find ourselves in a difficulty. Three hundred
and seventy years would certainly not seem to be suffi-
cient time for the peopling of the world, to the extent
to which it appears to have been peopled in the days
of Abraham, and for the formation of powerful and
settled monarchies in Babylonia and Egypt. But the
adoption of the Septuagint numbers for this period,
which are on every ground preferable, brings the chro-
nology into harmony at once with the condition of the
world as shown to us in the account given in Scripture
of the times of Abraham, and with the results obtain-
able from the study, in a sober spirit, of profane his-
tory. A thousand years is ample time for the occupa-
tion of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, by a considera-
ble population, for the formation of governments, the
erection even of such buildings as the Pyramids, the
advance of the arts generally to the condition found to
exist in Egypt under the eighteenth dynasty, and for
almost any amount of subdivision and variety in lan-
guages. More time does not seem to be in any sense
needed by the facts of history hitherto known to us.
The world, generally, is in a primitive and simple con-
dition at the time of the call of Abraham. Men are
still chiefly nomades. Population seems sparse; for
Abraham and Lot find plenty of vacant land in Pales-
tine, and the descendants of Abraham experience no
difficulty in overspreading several countries. Settled
kingdoms appear nowhere, except in Egypt and in

326 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay YL

Babylonia ; and there the governments are of the sim-
plest form. Art in Babylonia is in a poor and low
condition, the implements used being chiefly of stone
and flint. Yet Babylon is much superior to her neigh-
bours, holds Assyria in subjection, and claims the
second place in the history of the world. Her histori-
cal beginnings reach back, at the utmost, to b.c. 2458,
while those of Egypt are probably but a very little
earlier. All other nations acknowledge themselves
younger than these two, and have no traditions even
of their existence much before b.c. 2000. The idea
that the Biblical chronology is too narrow, that it
cramps history, and needs to be set aside in favour of
a scheme which puts 10,000 years between the Deluge
and the birth of Christ, is not one which has grown
upon men gradually through the general tenor of their
inquiries into the antiquities of different nations. It is
merely the dream of a single historical enthusiast, who,
devoting himself to the history of one country, and pin-
ning his faith on ojie author — whom after all he exag-
gerates and misrepresents — has come to imagine that
the additional time is required by the history of his
favourite, and has then forced and strained the histo-
ries of other countries, with which he has no special
acquaintance, into a distant agreement with the chro-
nological scheme formed upon the supposed necessities
of a single kingdom and people. As for the further
requirement of another 10,000 years between the Del-
uge and the creation of man, it rests upon linguistic
phantasies of the most purely speculative character.
The remainder of the historical objections to the au-
thenticity of the Pentateuch, though sometimes ingen-
ious, have in them nothing to alarm us. Profane his-
tory is decidedly favourable to a Deluge extending to
all races of men, and to the greater longevity of man
in the earlier ages. Ethnological research tends con-
tinually more and more to confirm, instead of shaking,
the account given of the affiliation of nations in the
tenth chapter of Genesis. The more accurately old
myths are examined, the more evident does it become

Essay VI.] THE PENTATEUCH; 30-

that their tone and spirit are wholly different from the
tone and spirit of Scripture. The "Pentateuch has the
air and manner of history ; the Jews have always re-
garded it in that light; and modern historical and

geographical inquiries, whenever they afford an oppor-
tunity of testing the accuracy of the narrative, are
found to bear witness to its truth. Whatever may be
the scientific difficulties in the way of a literal recep-
tion of some portions, historical difficulties of any real
magnitude there are none. Internally, the narrative is
consistent with itself; externally, it is supported by all
that has any claim to be considered sober earnest in
the histories of other nations. The Christian world,
which has reposed upon it for nearly 2000 years, as an
authentic record of the earliest ages, is justified, by all
the results of modern historical research, in still con-
tinuing its confident trust. There is really not a pre-
tence for saying that recent discoveries in the field of
history, monumental or other, have made the accept-
ance of the Mosaic narrative in its plain and literal
sense any more difficult now than in the days of Bos-
suet or Stillingileet.

ESSAY VII.

INSPIRATION.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY VII.

1. Introduction — All spiritual enlight-

enment derived from the Divine
Spirit; but is all derived in the
same way?

2. A Divine and a human element in all

inspiration — How co-existing?

3. History of the question — Jewish opin-

ions— Patristic opinions.

4. No argument against a high view to

be deduced from the patristic belief
in the inspiration of others besides
the Apostles.

5. Middle ages— Mysticism.

6. The Reformation favourable to a very

high esteem of Holy Scripture, but
favourable also to freedom of
thought.

7. Tendency of thought in Germany in

the ISth century.

8. Deism passed from England, through

France, to Germany— Doctrine "of
the English Deists.

9. Causes leading to the controversy on

inspiration in the present day.

10. English writers of the present centu-

ry and their theories.

11. Christian Evidence in a measure in-

dependent of theories of inspiration.

12. Definite theories not desirable.

13. Objections to inspiration closely con-

nected with objections to miracles.

14. Origin of doubts about miracles.

15. Miracles not improbable, if there be a

spiritual world connected more or
less closely with the physical world,
and a Personal Euler of the world.

16. If miracles ever should occur, wo

should most naturally expect them
to be connected with some special
communication of God's will to man.

17. The common course taken by philo-

sophical scepticism.

IS. As to inspiration: we have first cer-
tain phenomena in the Bible, prov-
ing the existence of a human ele-
ment—The manifestation of that
human element most valuable in the
matter of evidence — We have next
certain phenomena manifesting a
Divine element. — (a) Prophecy —
Question as to the existence of true
predictive prophecy in the Old Tes-
tament—Objection— Nihil in scripto
quod non prius in Scriptore — Objec-
tion replied to — Cases of Balaam
and Caiaphas. — (b) Types.

19. How far all this proves the special in-

spiration of the Old Testament— Cole-
ridge's view considered.

20. Argument d fortiori for the inspira-

tion of the New Testament— Mr.
Maurice's question replied to.

21. Mr. Morell's theory of the intuitional

consciousness considered.

22. Latitude of opinion on some points

may be allowable.

23. The Scriptures an infallible deposito-

ry of religious truth.

24. Question concerning physical science-

25. Conclusion— Some trials of our faith

ought not to stagger us— The proper
condition of mind in the present
day.

INSPIRATION.

1. As in the natural world wisdom and intelligence
are among the signs of life in an intelligent being, so
in the spiritual world a spiritual understanding follows
on the possession of spiritual life. As the Divine
Spirit gives life, so He inspires wisdom. Indeed all
spiritual gifts flow equally from the same Spirit. St.
Paul says that " there are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit," who gives to one the word of wisdom,
to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, to
another miracles and gifts of healing, to another proph-
ecy, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the
interpretation of tongues. So he describes the influ-
ence of that one and the selfsame Spirit on the early
disciples in the Church of Corinth. Are we to take
this literally ? Are we to believe that, whilst some
had spiritual wisdom and understanding — and that in
larger or less degrees — others were enabled to work
miracles, others to prophesy ; that whilst to some there
was only the common understanding of spiritual truths
and mysteries, such as an enlightened mind among our-
selves could penetrate, to others there was given an in-
fallible knowledge of future events or of Divine truths
otherwise unknown to man? Or, on the other hand,
shall we think no more than this — that the Holy
Spirit, who is the inspirer of all wisdom, by regenerating
the heart, purifying the soul, exalting the affections,
and quickening the intuitions of the mind, gives to
some men more than to others an insight into things
heavenly, and so enables them in all times and in all
ages of the Church to be exponents of the Divine will ?
— that He reveals God and Christ in their inmost con-

332 AIt)S T0 FAITH. [Essay VII

sciences, inspiring them with all high and holy thoughts,
and that thus they can utter things which would be deep
mysteries to other men, and which are, indeed, the ora-
cles of God ?

2. This is pretty much the question concerning in-
spiration so much agitated now. "When we come to
consider it, there can be no doubt but that we must
admit a human and a Divine element. There is the
mind of the Prophet or Apostle to be enlightened, and
the Holy Spirit, the inspirer or enlightener. The
question will be, in what manner and in what propor-
tion these two elements coexist. We may suppose the
human mind perfectly passive, acting simply under a
mechanical influence of the Holy Spirit, speaking or
writing not its own thoughts or its own words, but
only the thoughts and words of the Spirit of God. Or
we may suppose the mind of the writer or speaker act-
ing altogether freely, speaking entirely its own thoughts
and words, but having derived from Divine communion
and enlightenment a higher tone, having acquired
a correcter judgment, and, from a deep spiritual in-
sight, able to speak spiritual things such as the natural
man receiveth not. These are the two extremes. The
one is verbal inspiration, simple dictation, so that the
lips of the Prophet and the pen of the Evangelist are
but mechanical organs moved by the Spirit of God.
The other is no more than an exaltation of the natural
faculties by the influence of the same Spirit, such an
exaltation as we must believe all wise and holy men to
have received, an inspiration such as that by which a
Hooker or a Butler wrot ethe works which bear their
names. There are many intermediate steps between
these two, but no one can exceed either of these ex-
tremes and yet call himself a Christian.

3. Many causes have brought this subject into
controversy at present. It has, however, occupied the
thoughts of thoughtful men, and has been debated
and disputed on in earlier times ; and a rapid glance at
the history of the question may be a help to giving it
its true place, and perhaps to finding its true solution.

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 333

The reverence which the ancient Jews felt for the
Jewish Scriptures, must have sprung from the highest
theory of verbal inspiration. Their care to count
every verse and letter in every book of the Old Tes-
tament, to retain every large or small letter, every
letter above or below the line, their belief that a mys-
tery lurked in every abnormal state of letter, jot, or
tittle, cannot have resulted from any lower principle.
Later Jews, like the Cabbalists or Maimonides, may
have become Pantheists or Rationalists ; but the more
ancient have left us the clearest proof that they esteemed
the Scriptures as the express word of God Himself.
The well-known tradition amongst the Alexandrian
Jews concerning the verbal agreement of all the LXX.
translators, though working in seventy separate cells,
looks the same way. There is considerable reason to
believe that the distinction between the different books
of scripture — the Hagiographa being esteemed inferior
to the Prophets, and the Prophets inferior to the law —
was at least much magnified, if not wholly invented,
by the later Jews. So far, however, as such a distinc-
tion and such difference of estimation existed at all, so
far we must perhaps believe that there was a notion of
something like degrees of inspiration.

The earlier Christian Fathers seem to have followed
much the same course as their Jewish predecessors.
Clemens Romanus calls the Holy Scriptures " the true
words of the Holy Ghost " (c. 45). No definite theory
of inspiration would be likely to be propounded ; but the
general reverence for the words of Holy Writ, and the
deep significance believed to exist underneath the
letter, prove the belief in inspiration to have been very
strong and universal. Justin Martyr, and his Jewish
opponent, seem fully agreed in their appreciation of the
Old Testament. "No Scripture can be opposed to any
other Scripture" (' Dialog.' p. 289). Irenaeus saw in
our Lord's promise to his Apostles — " He that heareth.
you, heareth Me" (Luke x. 16) — an assurance of their
infallibility in the Gospel. " After the Lord's resurrec-
tion they were indued with the power of the Holy

334 AIDS T0 EAITH. [Essay VII.

Ghost, and had perfect knowledge of the truth. He,
therefore, who despises their teaching despises Christ
and God " (Iren. iii. 1). Still it may be fairly said
that IrenaBus, in his accounts of the composition of the
Gospel, seems to combine a human element with the
Divine. (See Iren. iii. 11.)

Tertullian embraced the Montanist belief, that Di-
vine communications were made to man by means of
a condition of trance or ecstasy. In this trance the
prophet was supposed to lose all sense, like a Pythoness
under the influence of the Divine afflatus (c. Marcion.
iv. 22). This was the highest kind of inspiration.
Yet he seems to have thought that the Apostles were at
times allowed to speak their own wTords, and not the
words of God, as where St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 12) says,
" To the rest speak I, not the Lord " (' De Monogam.'
c. 3).

The Alexandrian Fathers, Clement and Origen,
though adopting somewhat of the Keo-Platonic views of
the soul, as receiving an enlightenment by communion
with the Divine Logos, appear to have held firmly the
infallibility of every word of Scripture ; and the Mys-
tical sense which they attach to the history and the
language of the Old Testament seems to point even to
verbal inspiration. (See Lumper, ' Iiistoria Theologico-
critica,' vol. 9. c. 4. § iii. art. 2.) Origen was, however,
the first great Biblical critic : few things have tended
more than Biblical criticism to modify the theory of
verbal inspiration : and this appeared even in the
patristic ages and among some of the most illustrious
of the patristic writers. The critical labours of Chry-
sostom and Jerome, in the beginning of the fifth centu-
ry, made them observe the apparent discrepancies in
the account of the Evangelists, and other like difficul-
ties in Holy Writ. Such observations led to a greater
appreciation of the human element in the composition
of Scripture. St. Chrysostom could see that some
slight variations in the different narratives of the same
event were no cause for anxiety or unbelief, but rather
a proof that the Evangelists were independent wit-

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 335

nesses. And St. Jerome could discern in the New
Testament writers a dialect inferior to the purest Greek,
and even at times a mixture of human passion in the
language of the Apostles.* All this, however, these
Fathers clearly held to be subjected and subordinate
to the general Divine influence of the guiding and
overruling Spirit.

4. No argument against a high doctrine of inspi-
ration, as held by the Fathers, can be fairly deduced
from the fact that they were disposed to admit the
inspiration of other writings besides the Canonical
Scriptures. Many of them knew the Old Testament
only in the Greek translation, and were inclined to
pay the same reverence to that which may have been
due only to the Hebrew original. The writings of
Clement and Hernias were at first received as canonical,
though more careful inquiry excluded them from the
Canon of the New Testament. This may be an argu-
ment against the critical accuracy of the Fathers, but
is none against their belief in the inspiration of the
Bible. Nor, again, are we warranted in thinking that
they confounded natural enlightenment with spiritual
inspiration, because some of them speak as if prophetic
powers and supernatural illumination were vouchsafed
to others besides the Apostles of Christ. There can
be no question that the earlier Fathers believed in the
continuation of the miraculous powers of the Apostolic
age down to their own times, and hence they looked
themselves for a special illumination from the Holy
Ghost. Yet, even so, they distinguished carefully
between the gift of infallibility in things spiritual
vouchsafed to the writers of the New Testament, and
the gift of Divine illumination to themselves and their
own contemporaries. f

* Neander, 'History of Doctrines,' i. 280. (Bohn.)

t Ignatius claims for himself that he knew the doctrines which he taught,
not from man, but from the testimony of the Spirit ('ad Philadelph.' 7) ; but
then he clearly distinguishes between himself and the Apostles. " I do not
enjoin you as Peter and Paul; they were Apostles, I a condemned man."
(' Ad. Eph.' 15.) And Tertullian, who took a peculiarly high view of the
Divine illumination of the true Christian, says distinctly that "all the faithful
have the Spirit of Cod, but all are not Apostles." " the Apostles have the

336 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VII.

5. The Church of the middle ages had, for the most
part, a belief similar to that of the earlier Fathers.
Visions, and dreams, and sensible illuminations were
still expected. Miraculous powers and Divine inspira-
tion were still believed to reside in the Church ; but
the Scriptures were not the less esteemed as specially,
and in a sense distinct and peculiar, the lively oracles
of God. Still the bold speculations of Abelard, in the
twelfth century, reached the doctrine of inspiration as
well as other deep questions of theology. The Prophets,
as he taught, had sometimes the gift of prophecy and
sometimes spoke from their own minds. The Apostles
too were liable to error, as St. Peter on the question of
circumcision, who was reproved by St. Paul.* Abe-
lard's tendency was rationalistic. But here a very im-
portant phenomenon, not confined to the middle ages,
but very apparent then, deserves our careful attention.
In all ages of the Church we find frequent tendencies
to mysticism. The desire for a kind of ecstatic vision
of things Divine, of abstraction from the external
world, and an absorbed contemplation of the Deity, is
natural to enthusiastic temperaments, and is not uncom-
mon in times of dogmatic controversy. The state so
sought after seems to offer a refuge from the strife of
tongues, from the din and noise and uncharitableness
of the world and the Church without. Those who have
taken this line, indulged in this spirit, have, of course,
a firm belief in the communion of the Christian soul
with the Spirit of God, and look for constant revelations
from the Divine to the human intelligence. The mys-
tic is transported out of self, and aims at frequent su-
pernatural communion with God. To such a person
the condition of the devout soul is a condition of con-
stant inspiration. It is very true that the Holy Spirit
is ever present with the Church, ever dwells in the
souls of Christians, is our teacher and guide in all
things, is ever ready to enlighten our understandings, as

Holy Spirit in a peculiar sense." ('De Exhortatione Castitatis,' 4.) See
Westcott, ' Introd. to the Gospels,' pp. 3SG, 400.

* 'Sic et Non.' Ed. Hencke, p. 10. See Neander, 'Hist, of Doctrine,'
vol. ii. p. 492.

Essay VII.] INSPIEATION. 337

well as to convert our hearts. But this truth of Scrip-
ture, pressed to the extent of mysticism, breaks down
the boundary between the inspiration of Prophets or
Apostles, and the enlightenment of the Christian soul.
The genuine mystic is himself in a state of the high-
est inspiration. " The intuitions of his spirit enable him
to see things invisible. High doctrine concerning the
Church is favourable enough to such a view of things.
Belief in the infallibility of the existing Church, in its
miraculous powers, and in frequent revelations to the
higher Saints, looked all this way. Again, it is well known
how mysticism tended to Pantheism. Striving after
absorption in God, men learned to identify their own
minds, more or less, with Deity. The Divine Spirit was
believed to dwell in all human souls, and needed only to
be stirred up within them. The inclination to look
wholly within, neglect of the objective, cultivation only
of the subjective — all this too readily takes a panthe-
istic direction. And so we find many sects of medieval
mystics lapsing at length into pure Pantheism — a state
of belief in which it is plain enough that anything like
the Christian doctrine of the inspiration of the Scrip-
tures is impossible, as it cannot be distinguished from
the illumination of any devout mind, or from the inspi-
rations of genius. This is a thing of great importance
to observe, as it shows itself in subsequent ages of
Church History. Mysticism and extreme spiritualism
destroy any definite doctrine of the inspiration of Scrip-
ture, and they very readily glide into Pantheism.

6. The Reformation, of course, introduced much
thought and controversy about Scripture. " The suffi-
ciency of the Scriptures for salvation " became a Ref-
ormation watchword : Scripture, the written word of
God, — not the unwritten record of the Church, Tradi-
tion. The natural inclination was to a very high es-
teem of the Bible, as the definite deposit of Christian
truth, in contradistinction to the indefmiteness of the
traditions of the Church, and of that teaching of the
Holy Spirit ever present with the Church, on which the
Eoman divines insisted. Nevertheless, the tendency
15 •

338 A1DS T0 IrAITH. [Essay VIL

of the Reformation was to boldness of thought and free-
dom of inquiry. Erasmus, the great forerunner of Lu-
ther, had from his critical investigations been led to a
somewhat freer view of inspiration than had been com-
mon before him. He thought it unnecessary to attrib-
ute everything in the Apostles to miraculous teaching.
Christ suffered the Apostles to err, and that too after the
descent of the Paraclete, but not so as to endanger the
faith.- Even Luther, the great master mind of the
age, with his strong subjective tendency, and with his
indomitable boldness, ventured to subject the books of
the New Testament to the criterion of his own intuition.
The teaching of St. Paul penetrated and convinced his
soul ; St. James seemed to contradict St. Paul ; and his
Epistle was rejected as an Epistle of straw. There is
reason to believe that he afterwards regretted and
retracted ; but words once spoken reach far and wide,
and can never be unsaid again.

7. The tendency of Calvin and the Calvinist reform-
ers was less subjective and more scholastic than that
of Luther and the Lutherans. Their distinct and defi-
nite system of doctrine, like that of their forerunners
Augustine and Aquinas, naturally found a place for
the plenary and even verbal inspiration of the Scrip-
tures, so that some of the Swiss Confessions speak of
simple dictation by the Holy Ghost. The Remonstrants
or Arminians, on the other hand, were more disposed
to Rationalism than the generality of the reformed ;
and writers, like Grotius and Episcopius, made clear
distinctions between the Divine and the human ele-
ments in the writers of the Old and New Testaments.f
The Socinians were, of course, the most rationalis-
ing sect of those which early sprang from the Reforma-
tion, a fungus-growth, rather than one of the natural
branches. At "first, however, they took the same view

* Non est noccsso ut quicquid fuit in Apostolis protinus ad miraculum
vocemus. Passus est errare suos Christus, etiam post acceptum Paracletum,
sed nou usque ad fidci periculum. — Erasm. Epistt., lib. ii., torn. iv. Edit.
Basil.

+ E. g. A Spiritu Sancto dictari liistorias non fuit opus. Satis fuit scrip-
toi-em tuemoria valere. — Grotius, Vot. pro pace Ecclcs., torn. iii. p. G72. Loud.
107 9.

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 339

as other Protestant writers of the authority of Holy
"Writ, only they were less sensitive about difficulties
and apparent discrepancies in Scripture, and more dis-
posed to cut and square it so as to accord with what
appeared to them to be reason and common sense.
This tendency more and more fully developed itself.
The modern Unitarian is a genuine nationalist, often
little different from a Deist.

The mystical spirit, which had long been swelling
up under the weight of the Medieval Church, some-
times wholly within it, sometimes bursting forth from
the pressure, showed itself in many places and many
forms, after the triumph of the Reformation. Its ele-
vation of the subjective over the objective, of the in-
ward life over the outward letter, led insensibly to a
disregard of the Bible in comparison with the internal
testimony and the intuition of the soul. The Anabap-
tists of Germany were of the coarsest class of mystics.
Among the best have been the Quakers in this country.
The leading principle of George Fox, their founder,
was the doctrine of the Inward Light. This is the true
principle of all knowledge of religion. The outward
Word is chiefly valuable as it stirs up the Word within.
The highest source of knowledge is this inward illu-
mination. All outward forms, all outward tests, all
creeds and confessions, are strictly forbidden. Even
the Bible must be subordinated to the light of God
within. It is evident that, on this principle, there can
be no distinction between the inspiration of Prophets
and Apostles and the inspiration of every devout soul.
It is also observable how this theory produces results
like those which spring from the Roman doctrine of
tradition, The written Word of God is no longer the
final court of appeal in controversies of doctrine. The
Church of Rome finds an infallible interpreter in that
Divine Spirit which ever dwells in and guides the
Church. The mystic has an infallible interpreter in
his own bosom, who not only opens his understanding
that he may understand the Scriptures, but communi-
cates directly and sensibly truth to the soul. It is also

s40 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay Y1I.

very deserving of remark, however painful it may be,
that at one time the Quakers were rapidly hurrying
into Rationalism, and even Socinianism— the coldest
forms of unbelief— from the warm mysticism of their
first founders.

To come nearer to our own times, the whole spirit
of the last century in Germany was subjective. There
seemed a reaction from the positive spirit of the seven-
teenth century, which has been called the middle age
of the Preformation. Pietism was the form taken by
the religious revival, a form which was eminently sub-
jective, and whch partook much of the mystical. The
philosophical spirit was of the same character. The
very principle of illuminism (auklarung) was, that there
is in man's inmost consciousness an intuitional knowl-
edge of truth. Its motto— " Wahr ist was klar ist,"
"that is true which is clear,"— sufficiently indicates
its character. Proceeding from such a ground, and
raising Natural Religion to the rank of a Revelation,
Tollner, the disciple of "Wolff, reduced Scripture to the
level of a natural light.* At the same time, the Pie-
tists used the Bible, not so much to be the source of
truth and the fountain of faith, as for a book of devo-
tion and to raise pious emotions.f In both ways there
was a move towards the confounding of the light of
Nature with the light of Revelation, of the light of the
Spirit in the devout or illuminated soul with the light
which had been specially vouchsafed to Prophets and
Apostles for communicating God's truth to the world.

8. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the
Deism, which had been troubling^Englancl, had passed
through the alembic of French scepticism, and now
settled down in a shower of Rationalism on Germany.
The Rationalism of Paulus, the Pantheism of Hegel,
the historical myth of Strauss, derive their pedigree
from the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Toland,
Tindall, and other English Deists of the seventeenth

* See Kahnis, 'Hist, of German Protestantism,' English Translation, by
Meyer, p. 116.

t lb., pp. 100, 116.

Essay VII.] INSPIEATION. 341

and early eighteenth centuries, through the school of
Rousseau and Voltaire.* The special principle of Lord
Herbert and his followers, the Deists, was that there
were several positive religions — Christianity, Judaism,
Mohammedism, &c. In the main all these are the
same. The general religion is at the bottom of all of
them, i. e., the Religion of Nature, a religion founded
in the natural perception of truth, the intuitional con-
sciousness of the human mind. Positive religions may
be very good for practical purposes ; but all that is
positive in them is evil, or at the best worthless ; the
valuable part being that which they hold in common
of the general religion. It was this principle which
passed through the various forms of French infidelity,
German Rationalism and Pantheism, and which has
been brought back to us, as the highest result of mod-
ern discoveries in science and mental philosophy. How
it was calculated to act upon the theory of inspiration,
and to unsettle it even with those who had not become
either Rationalists or Deists, it is needless to remark.
Where a shadow of infidelity is obscuring the light,
many, who are not wholly under its darkness, will yet
pass through the penumbra that surrounds it. Even
the apologist in the last century, from the wish to take
positions which were impregnable, surrendered, at least
for argument's sake, the higher ground of their forerun-
ners in the faith. And, in the like manner, among the
German divines, who still held Christian and orthodox
opinions, there was a tendency to depart from the
higher doctrine of inspiration held by the Church and
the Reformers ; to speak of degrees of inspiration, of
fallibility in things earthly, of a Divine influence ele-
vating the mental faculties of the sacred writers ; not
simply to ascribe all to the direct teaching of the Spirit
ofGod.f _ ...

0. Distinct theories of inspiration were in old times
seldom propounded, even where some attention was

* SeoKahnis as above, p. 31, &c. McCaul's ' Rationalism and Dcistic In-
fidelity,' passim.

t Sec Kahnis, pp. 116, 117.

342 AID3 T0 FAITH. [Essay VIL

directed to the question. Definite controversies upon
it scarcely arose. The present century has been rife
in both ; and they have prevailed not a little among
ourselves. Several causes have contributed to call them
forth. First, and chiefly, the spread of rationalising
speculations, and the consequent unsettling of faith.*
Next, the greater attention which has been paid to the
criticism of the Bible, and especially of the Slew Testa-
ment, has exposed to view some of the difficulties con-
cerning the origin of the books of the Bible, concerning
the historical accuracy of some statements, concerning
the slight apparent variations in the testimony of the
Evangelists. In ordinary historians these would puzzle
no one. The strictest integrity is compatible with
slight inaccuracy or divergence of testimony ; but if
all was the work of God's Holy Spirit, speaking through
human agents, the least discrepancy is formidable.
Hence the human element has been thought more of
among modern critics, and by some has been elevated
above the Divine. Thirdly, the rapid discoveries of
modern science have been supposed to contradict the
records of the Old Testament Scriptures ; and, in order
to account for such a contradiction, efforts have been
made to interpret anew the words of Moses ; and, where
these have proved unsatisfactory, many have more or
less believed that the writers of the historical books
were merely chroniclers of historical events or collec-
tors of ancient records, the providence of God having
watched over the preservation of such records, but the
Spirit of God having in no sense dictated them. Still
freer views have been propounded ; but this may suffice
as the expression of the thoughts of serious men.

10. One of the first among ourselves to put forth a
bold theory of inspiration was Coleridge. His ' Con-
fessions of an Enquiring Spirit' was indeed not pub-

* It is important to observe, that this was first in time as well as in im-
portance. Dr. McCaul has shown clearly (' Rationalism and Dcistic Infidel-
ity') that the spread of unbelieving opinions in Germany was first, the
criticism came afterwards. Faith in Revelation was shaken by Deism and
Rationalism, and then the unfriendly criticism was brought to bear upon the
records of Christianitv.

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. g^3

lislied till after his death ; but the tone of many former
writings is much the same. In the posthumous work
just mentioned he unfolds his theory pretty freely. Of
the Bible he speaks as a library of infinite value, as
that which must have a Divine Spirit in it, from its
appeal to all the hidden springs of feeling in our hearts.
" In short," he writes, " whatever finds me bears wit-
ness that it has proceeded from a Holy Spirit." (Let-
ter i.) " In the Bible there is more that finds me than
I have experienced in all other books put together;
the words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my
being ; and whatever finds me brings with it an irre-
sistible evidence of its having proceeded from the
Holy Spirit." (Letter ii.) But then he protests against
" the doctrine which requires me to believe that not
only what finds me, but all that exists in the sacred
volume, and which I am bound to find therein, was not
only inspired by, that is, composed by men under the
actuating influence of, the Holy Spirit, but likewise
dictated by an Infallible Intelligence ; that the writers,
each and all, were divinely informed, as well as in-
spired." The very essence of "this doctrine is this,
that one and the same Intelligence is speaking in the
unity of a person, which unity is no more broken by
the diversity of the pipes through which it makes it-'
self audible, than is a tune by the different instruments
on which it is played by a consummate musician equally
perfect in all. One instrument may be more capacious
than another, but as far as its compass extends, and in
what it sounds forth, it will be true to the concejDtion
of the master." Such a doctrine, he conceives, must
imply infallibility in physical science and in every-
thing else as much as in faith, in things natural no
less than in spiritual. He expresses a full belief
" that the word of the Lord came to Samuel, to Isai-
ah, to others, and that the words which gave utter-
ance to the same are faithfully recorded." But for the
recording he does not think that there was need of any
supernatural working, except in such cases as those in
which God not only utters certain express words to a

344 AID3 T0 FAITU. [Essay VII

prophet, but also enjoins him to record them. In the
latter case he accepts them "as supernaturally com-
municated and their recording as executed under special
guidance." The arguments of Coleridge are calculated
rather to pull down than to build up. He brings many
reasons against a rigid mechanical theory, against a
belief that the Bible is simply the voice of God's
Holy Spirit uttered through different organs or instru-
ments ; but he does not fix any limit, he does not say
how far he admits Divine teaching or inspiration to ex-
tend, nor does he apparently draw any line of distinc-
tion between the inspiration of holy men of old and
the spiritual and providential direction of enlightened
men in every age and nation.

Wherever Coleridge has trodden Mr. Maurice fol-
lows him ; not that he is a servile imitator, but he is a
zealous disciple, and one who generally outdoes his
master. In his ' Theological Essays ' he begins to speak
of the inspiration of poets and prophets among the
Greeks ; he speaks again of the quickening and inform-
ing spirit, to which all good men ascribe their own
teaching and enlightenment ; he quotes the language
of our Liturgy as ascribing to "God's holy inspiration"
the power of " thinking those things that be good ;" and
then he asks the question, " Ought we in our sermons
to say, ' Brethren, we beseech you not to suppose the
inspiration of Scripture to at all resemble that for which
we have been praying ; they are generically and essen-
tially unlike ; it is blasphemous to connect them in our
minds ; the Church is very guilty for having suggested
the association ? ' ' Proceeding in this course he nat-
urally arrives at the conclusion that all which is good
and beautiful comes from the inspiration of the Spirit
of God, and that the sacred words of Scripture came
in the same manner from the same Spirit. (See Essay
xiii.) In some of his writings, especially in his work
on 'Sacrifices,' he appears to have carried his disbelief
of a more special inspiration of Holy Scripture to a
greater length than in his 'Theological Essays,' as
where God's tempting of Abraham to slay his son is

Esbay VII.] LNSPIEATION. 345

attributed to a horrible thought coming over him and
haunting him.

A very able and interesting writer on the same side
of the same subject is Mr. Morell in his ' Philosophy
of Religion.' The work is one of considerable acute-
ness and philosophical power. The writer's theory of
inspiration is based on his theory of the human mind.
The different powers of consciousness he classes thus :

Powers of Consciousness . . to which correspond . . Emotions.

1. The Sensational " " The Instincts.

2. The Perceptive " " The Animal Passions.

3. The Logical " " ' Relational Emotions.

4. The Intuitional " " Esthetic, Moral, and

Eeligious Emotions.

Now, the intuitional consciousness, he contends, is
that which alone is properly susceptible of religious
impressions and religious truths. Revelation he con-
siders to involve an immediate intuition of Divine real-
ities. All revelation implies an intelligible object pre-
sented, and a given power of recipiency in the subject,
which power is lodged in the intuitional consciousness.
In distinguishing revelation and inspiration, he defines
" revelation, in the Christian sense, as that act of the
Divine power by which God presents the realities of
the spiritual world immediately to the human mind,
while inspiration denotes that especial influence wrought
upon the faculties of the subject, by virtue of which he
is able to grasp these realities in their perfect fulness
and integrity" (p. 150). "God made a revelation of
Himself to the world in Jesus Christ ; but it was the
inspiration of the Apostles, which enabled them clearly
to discern it."

Mr. Morell argues that " the canonicity of the New
Testament Scriptures was decided upon solely on the
ground of their presenting to the whole Church clear
statements of Apostolical Christianity. The idea of
their being written by any special command of God,
or verbal dictation of the Spirit, was an idea altogether
foreign to the primitive Christians" (p. 165). "The
proper idea of inspiration, as applied to the Holy Scrip-
tures, does not include either miraculous powers, verbal
15*

346 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VII.

dictation, or any distinct commission from God." {lb.)
On the contrary, it consists " in the impartation of clear
intuitions of moral and spiritual truth to the mind by
extraordinary means. According to this view of the
case, inspiration, as an internal phenomenon, is per-
fectly consistent with the natural laws of the human
mind — it is a higher kind of potency, which every man
to a certain degree possesses" (p. 166). This view, he
thinks, "gives full consistency to the progressive char-
acter of Scripture morality" (p. 167). "It gives a sat-
isfactory explanation of the minor discrepancies to be
found in the sacred writers" (p. 170), whether those
discrepancies be between Scripture and science, or in
statements of facts, or in reasoning. In every case in
which the moral nature is highly purified, and so a
harmony of the spiritual being with the mind of God
produced, a removal of all outward disturbances from
the heart, " What," he asks, " is to prevent or disturb
the immediate intuition of Divine things? 'Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' " (p. 186).

It is clear that this theory makes great purity of
heart, or high sanctification, equivalent to, or the un-
failing instrument of, inspiration. If one man is a
better Christian than another, and so has a purer heart,
he must be more inspired than the other. Hence, if a
man of modern times could be found of a higher re-
ligious tone and character than an Apostle, he would
have a higher intuition of Divine things, and therefore
would know Christian truth more infallibly. Moreover,
it appears that the value of the Scriptures consists, not
in their proceeding from any direct command of God,
or from any infallible guidance of His Spirit, but in
their embodying the teaching and experience of men
whose hearts were elevated, and so their understand-
ings enlightened ; to this it being added, in the case of
the ISTewTestament, that the writers were such as were
specially qualified to represent the Apostolical Church,
and so to transmit its spirit and teaching to us.

A writer of I less ability, but more boldness, Mr.
Mac jNaught of Liverpool, has carried the same theory

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 34/7

to its furthest limits. He defines inspiration to be
" that action of the Divine Spirit by which, apart from
any idea of infallibility, all that is good in man, beast,
or matter, is originated and sustained" (p. 136, Second
Edition). He denies all distinction between genius and
inspiration. He doubts not that "David, Solomon, Isa-
iah, or Paul would have spoken of everything, which
may with propriety be called a work of genius, or of
cleverness, or of holiness," as " works of the Spirit of
God, written by Divine inspiration " (p. 132).

11. The historical sketch thus rapidly given seems
to show that there have always been some slight differ-
ences of tone and opinion touching this important ques-
tion, but that these differences have never so markedly
come out as in the nineteenth century. The subject at
present causes great anxiety, and not without reason.
Many feel that, if they must give up a high doctrine of
inspiration, they give up Christianity ; and yet they
think that a high doctrine is scarcely tenable. Such a
feeling is not unnatural, and yet it is not wholly true.
All the history, and even all the great doctrines of the
Gospel, might be capable of proof, and so deserving of
credence, though we were obliged to adopt almost the
lowest of the modern theories of inspiration. For in-
stance, all, or almost all, the arguments of Butler,
Paley, Lardner, and other like authors, are independ-
ent of the question, " What is the nature and degree of
Spiritual inspiration 1 " Paley, for instance, undertakes
to prove the truth of Christ's resurrection and of the
Gospel history, and thence the truth of the doctrines
which Christ taught to the world. But this he argues
out, for the most part, on principles of common histori-
cal evidence. Pie treats the Apostles as twelve com-
mon men, of common honesty and common intelligence.
If they could not have been deceived, and had no mo-
tive to deceive the world, then surely we must accept
their testimony as true. But if their testimony is true,
Jesus Christ must have lived, and taught, and worked
miracles, and risen from the dead, and so in Him we
have an accredited witness sent from God. His teach-

348 AIDS T0 FAiTn. lessatVii

ing, therefore, must have been the truth ; and if we
have good grounds for believing that His disciples
carefully treasured up His teaching, and faithfully
handed it on to us, we have then in the New Testa-
ment an unquestionable record of the will and of the
truth of God. Even if the Apostles and Evangelists
had no special inspiration, yet, if we admit their care
and fidelity, we may trust to their testimony, and so
accept their teaching as true.

So, then, even if we were driven to take the lowest
view of inspiration, we are not bound to give up our faith.
External evidence must almost of necessity begin by
taking low ground. It must treat nothing as certain
until it is proved. It must not, therefore, even pre-
sume that witnesses are honest till it has found reason
to think them so ; and, of course, it cannot treat them
as inspired till it meets with something which compels
an acknowledgment of their inspiration. This is
taking the extremest case, one in which we altogether
doubt the inspiration of the Apostles. A fortiori, we
need not throw away all faith, if we should be led to
think that some books of the Old Testament are only
historical records, collected by Jewish antiquarians,
and bound up with the writings of prophets, as venera-
ble and valuable memorials of the peculiar people of
God. All this might be, and yet God may have spoken
by holy men of old, and afterwards more fully by His
Son.

Some Christian controversialists, who take high
ground themselves, write as if they thought that Chris-
tianity was not worth defending, unless it was defended
exactly on their principles. The minds of the young
more especially are sometimes greatly endangered by
this means. The defender of the Gospel maybe but an
indifferent reasoner. He fails to make his ground sure
and strong. His reader finds more forcible, at least
more specious, arguments elsewhere. He thinks the
advocate he rested on defeated, his arguments answered
and upset, and Christianity itself seems lost. Now, we
may surely begin by saying, that the question of inspi-

Essay VII.J INSPIRATION. 349

ration is, within certain limits, a question internal to

Christianity. No doubt, it may materially afreet the
evidences of Christianity ; but the questions of verbal
inspiration, mechanical inspiration, dynamical inspira-
tion, and the like, are all questions on which persons
believing in the Gospel may differ. There is a degree
of latitude which must be fatal to faith ; but within
certain limits men may differ, and yet believe. We
shall be wise to take safe ground ourselves, and to bear
as charitably as we can with those who may take
either higher or lower. Only it cannot be concealed
that the temper of mind which disposes to a very low
doctrine of inspiration is one that may not improbably
lead in the end to the rejection of many religious truths
— to scepticism, if not to unbelief.

12. It seems pretty generally agreed among thought-
ful men at present, that definite theories of inspiration
are doubtful and dangerous. The existence of a human
element, and the existence of a Divine element, are
generally acknowledged ; but the exact relation of the
one to the other it may be difficult to define. Yet some
thoughts may aid us to an approximation to the truth,
perhaps sufficiently clear for practical purposes.

13. In the first place, then, let us consider for a
moment what is the real principle which seems to
actuate those writers and thinkers, of the present day
especially, who endeavour to root out all distinction
between the inspiration of the Apostles and Prophets,
and the ordinary illumination of good and wise men.
Is it not that morbid shrinking from a belief in any-
thing miraculous in religious history, now so commonly
prevalent ? that fear to admit the possibility that the
Creator of the universe should ever specially interfere
with the universe which He has created ? There can
be no question but that that inspiration of Holy Scrip-
ture in which the Church has generally believed is of
the nature of a miracle ; and so its rejection follows
upon the rejection of miracles in general. Many mar-
vellous things exist in nature, things at least as marvel-
lous as any miracles recorded in Scripture. It is mar-

350

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VII.

vellous that the worlds should have come into being,
and should all be under the government of the strictest
laws and the most undeviating rules — that life should
exist at all — that new life should be constantly burst-
ing forth — that eyes should open curiously formed to
see, and ears curiously constructed to hear ; — all this,
and much beside, is as marvellous as the suspension of
a natural law, as the restoring life to the body from
which it had gone forth, as the giving sight to the blind,
or hearing to the deaf. But the latter startles us into
conviction that some living personal being of creative
power has newly put forth his strength ; the former
state of things is so general, uniform, and constantly
recurring, that we can go on as usual without much
thinking of it, call it Nature, or perhaps Deity, or any
other abstract generality, and so rest satisfied.

li. Without doubt wre witness in the universe the
constant prevalence of general laws, and the regulation
of all things by them. In proportion to this general
constancy is our natural expectation that it will con-
tinue. And, moreover, even though we may be led to
believe that the whole must have been framed, and that
the laws must have been given by a creative intelli-
gence ; still the uniform operation of those laws disposes
us to doubt the probability that they will ever be in-
terfered with by the hand that first ordered them. This
doubt is strengthened by the belief that the wrisdom,
which first gave being to an universe, could never have
wrought so imperfectly as that its active interference
should afterwards be needed, to remedy defects or to
repair the machinery. And all this might perhaps be
probable enough, if we could see but a natural creation,
and if there were no moral and rational creation too.
But suppose it to be true, that there is in the physical
universe, and more or less connected with matter and
the laws of matter, a multitude of intelligent, rational,
moral, and accountable beings ; some more powerful
than others ; some, the angels, wholly good ; some, the
evil angels, wholly bad ; some of a mixed character,
like man ; all capable, more or less, of communication

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 35 j

with each other — those indeed of mixed character
closely connected with -matter, joined to material bodies,
whilst the more powerful intelligences, good and evil,
are freer and more independent of mere physical influ-
ences : suppose, too, that there is one great Intellect,
one Sovereign Mind, who made all, and who governs
all ; with premises like these, where is the improbabil-
ity that there should be occasional interferences with
natural laws ? Life does not exist at all without pro-
ducing some interference with the mere laws of matter
and motion. Where intelligent beings exist capable
of acting on material substances, they ever do mould
those material substances to their will, and make the
laws of nature serve them. If created intelligences
superior to man have any power to act through material
instruments, we should expect that they could only act,
as man does, by taking advantage of the laws by which
matter is guided, and so controlling one law by bring-
ing a more powerful law to bear upon it. Even of the
providence of the Supreme Being, if that providence
be continually at work, controlling the moral and in-
tellectual, and upholding the material creation, it is
most probable that such providential agency would be
exercised in overruling and directing natural causes
and laws rather than in displacing or superseding them.
But there certainly seems no a priori improbability
that the Creator should be also the Ruler of the uni-
verse ; that where the creation is moral and intelligent,
He should rule and interfere as lie might not where
it was simply material or animal ; that, where moral,
personal beings were acting upon one another, striving
to benefit, and striving to ruin one another, He too at
times should be at hand, to punish or to protect. And
so the doctrine of a special providence seems only con-
sistent with the belief in a personal God. But the step
from thence to a belief in miracles is no great stride.
For, if the great personal Creator rules and guides and
interferes in the affairs of His creation, though he would
be likeliest to do so commonly by mere guidance of
natural laws, yet, if there were need or occasion for it,

352

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VI :

it must be quite as easy for Him to interfere by the en-
tire suspension of those laws, or by a temporary altera-
tion of them.*

15. Indeed it is hard to see how miracles should
appear either impossible or improbable; but either on
the theory that what we see commonly we must see
always, or else on the theory that there is no personal
providence of God. And, in short, is it not true, that
the natural tendency of those who try to get rid of
miracle and special inspiration is to the resolving of
providence into law, and of God into simple intelli-
gence ? We are all well aware that we see the govern-
ment of law, not only in the physical, but even in the
intellectual world; and there are those, who, from
observing this, have been led to a belief in law, and
nothing but law. God with them is but law; and
providential or moral government gives place to mere
necessity. Of course, this is simple Atheism, and in-
volves all the difficulties, as well as all the miseries, of
Atheism. And yet, surely it is more consistent and
logical than the system, which does not deny the wis-
dom that seems to have planned and still seems to
order all things, but which yet shrinks from acknowl-
edging the distinct, individual personality of the Crea-
tor, His personal presence to all the universe which He
has created, His superintending providence over it, and
His active interference in it. Unquestionably this latter
is the doctrine of the Hebrew Bible, and that which
Jesus Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount. But
philosophic religion talks to us of a general principle of
intelligence diffused throughout all things, moving, and
breathing in, and animating all beings. Now this
general principle of intelligence sounds philosophical
enough ; but how can it be" reconciled with what Eng-

* Of course, if Professor Baden Powell's theory be true, that the physical
and the spiritual worlds are so separate that they can never come into con-
tact, then all this is impossible. But then all creation is impossible. The
spiritual could never have created the material. Indeed, the uniou of
soul and body must be impossible ; at all events, all religious knowledge must
be impossible. It can be founded on no evidence, and can result only from
certain convictions of the mind, wholly incapable of being tested as to their
truth.

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 353

lislimen call common sense ? What, on principles of
common reason, can be meant by intelligence where
there is no intellect, or a great principle of mind where
there is no personal mind at all % We know what is
meant by the intelligence of a mail, or the intelligence
of a beast — intelligence being the power of perceiving,
understanding, and reasoning preclicable of the mind
of that man or that beast. In like manner we can
understand, that if there be one great infinite mind,
then infinite intelligence may be predicable of that in-
finite mind. But to say that there is any general prin-
ciple of intelligence separable and distinguishable from
any particular mind, is surely to palter with ns in a
double sense. We can no more appreciate intelligence
as separated from the intellect of which it is a quality
or attribute, than we can understand agency without
an agent, potency without a power, sight without a
seer, thought without a thinker, or life without that
which lives. In short, may we not demur altogether
to mere abstractions, except as they may exist in the
mind, or in systems of philosophy ? And so, is not the
conclusion inevitable, that our real alternative lies be-
tween a mere Stoical law, a Buddhist Khar ma, blind
and inexorable, working in matter, it is useless to in-
quire whence or how — between this and a belief in a
God, personal, present, Maker, Ruler, Guider of all
things, and of all men ?

16. Give us this, as the Bible gives Him to us : and
though we should never expect Him to be perpetually
setting aside the laws which He has made for the uni-
verse, yet we need not — rather we cannot — believe,
that He should be so inevitably fettered by them, as
that Ho should not continually guide them for the good
of His intelligent and moral creatures — guide them as
in a less degree those creatures themselves can guide
them, or that, when He may see fit, He should not
suspend, or even for a season alter them. And if this
latter contingency should ever take place, we should
naturally expect that it would be never so probable as
when it was His pleasure to communicate to rational

354 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VII.

beings some special revelation of His will, and to teach
them concerning Himself what they might not be able
to learn from mere natural phenomena.

Can there be any inconsistency in such a putting
aside of the veil of nftture, and giving man a somewhat
clearer vision of God? Doubtless, other courses are
possible. God might be pleased, instead of making
any objective communications to mankind, to breathe
silently into each individual spirit, and to teach sepa-
rately each one of His will and of Himself. But no
one has a right to say that such must be God's plan of
action — that such only is consistent with Divine wis-
dom, or human capacity, or philosophical theology.
If God be not the mere pervading intelligence, which
informs the universe, but which can exert itself only
through the medium of things in the universe ; if, on
the contrary, He is a personal, present ruler and guide,
there can be no inconsistency in the belief that He may
at times let Himself be heard by those who can hear
Him — in other and clearer tones than the voices of
mere natural phenomena, or even of the intuitional
consciousness.

17. Now, the common course which we see philo-
sophic scepticism taking at present is this: First, there
is a doubt about miracles, then about special inspira-
tion. To build our faith in any degree on miracles is
unwise. Inspiration is wholly a question of degree.
One man has by the teaching or breathing of God's
Spirit greater insight into spiritual truth than another.
The Apostles, doubtless, had an unusual brightness of
such vision, and so we may truly call their writings in-
spired ; but the difference between their inspiration and
that of St. Augustine, or even of Plato, is but a difference
of degree. Next comes a doubt or a denial of the ex-
istence of personal spiritual beings. The devil, Satan,
wicked spirits are but names for a general evil prin-
ciple, which we cannot but see and feel influencing and
pervading ourselves and all things around us. Angels
are soon placed in the same category ; and the last step
of all reduces God Himself to a principle of intelligence.

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 355

if it does not go yet farther, and make Him but a
law.

But in all honesty, is there a middle course? Does
not the Bible at all events — Old Testament and New
alike — speak of a present, personal God, of a multitude
of personal spiritual beings — some good and others evil
— working around us and within us, of miracles wrought
by teachers sent from God, of predictions uttered before
the event, of holy men of old moved by the Spirit of
God to speak things, which could be known to none
but God Himself? It is quite impossible to get rid of
all this, and to retain the Bible as in any proper sense
true. Let it be said, that good men who wrote books
of the Bible were good men, but spoke according to
the prejudices of their times. They believed in proph-
ecies and miracles, and evil spirits, and so spoke of
them. Their inspiration quickened their intuitions,
but it did not make them infallible, and so in these
matters they may have erred. But, if Christianity be
Christianity, and not a system of mere morals and phi-
losophy, there was One Man, who was so much more
than man, that if we disbelieve Him, we make God
Himself a liar. And may we not ask, if His discourses
be not so unfaithfully handed down to us that we
might as well or better not have them at all, whether
He did not perpetually appeal to miracles, whether He
did not continually quote prophecies as fulfilled or
soon to be fulfilled, whether He did not sp>eak much of
angels and devils, whether He did not in the most
signal manner promise to His disciples the guidance
and teaching of His Holy Spirit, to bring to their re-
membrance all that He had said to them, and to lead
them into all truth? Is it possible to reject all this
without rejecting Christ?

18. And so much of miracles and inspiration gen-
erally. JSTow let us take a few facts, and see what they
seem to teach us. We have a number of different
books written in different styles, indicating the different
characters of the writers. At times, too, there appear
slight diversities of statements in trifling matters of

356 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VII.

detail. Here \vc mark a human element. If God
spoke, it is plain that He spoke through man ; if God
inspired, He inspired man. Even the (jrospel miracles
were often worked with some instrumental means ; no
wonder, then, that when God would teach men, He
would teach through human agency. And the differ-
ence of style — perhaps the slight discrepancies in state-
ments— seem to satisfy us that some portions at least of
the Bible were not simply dictated by God to man ;
there was not what is called mere mechanical or organic
inspiration ; God did not simply speak God's words,
using as a mere machine man's lips to speak them with.
Of course, we must not forget the benefit we derive
from these differences between writers of the same nar-
rative. The apparent or trifling discrepancies in the
statements of the different Evangelists, for instance,
convince us that they were independent witnesses, and
that the whole story did not arise from some well con-
certed plan to deceive the world :4he homely and even
barbarous style of some of the writers proves to us that
they were really fishermen, and not philosophers ; and
so we have a convincing evidence that the deepest
system of theology, and the noblest code of ethics ever
propounded— the one stirring the depths of the whole
human heart, the other guiding all human life — came,
not from the profound speculations of the wisest of
mankind, but either from God Himself, or else from a
source more inexplicable and impossible; from the
poor, the narrow-minded, and the untaught. But whilst
we see the benefit of all this, and admire the wisdom
which so ordered it, we learn from it that there must
have been a human element in Scripture; that God
may, nay must, have spoken, but that he dealt his own
common dealing with us — that is, He used earthly in-
struments for giving heavenly blessings, human means
for communicating'Divine truth.

]Srow, let us look the other way. Scripture is not a
mere system of theology, nor is it a mere historical rec-
ord. If it were either or both of these, and nothing
more, of course we could believe that nothing might be

Essay VII.] INSINUATION. 357

needed, beyond the quickening of the intuitional con-
sciousness, to enable men to conceive its truths and to
communicate them to others. There is, however, as has
been already noticed, a distinctly miraculous element in
it ; and here, if we admit its existence, we cannot fail to
see the working of a present, personal God. Take away
the miraculous element, and we may easily get into any
kind of philosophical abstraction. Admit it, and we
are brought back again into the intelligible region of
common, plain sense.

If anything in the world can be supernatural or mi-
raculous, it surely must be the infallible foreknowledge
of future events. JSTo elevation of the intuitional con-
sciousness can account for such foreknowledge. None
can certainly foretell the future, but one who can cer-
tainly guide the future. Do we, then, admit that any
of the prophets in the Old Testament were enabled to
foretell coming events, the events of the Gospel history
in particular? Some modern writers go so far as to
deny this in toto. According to them every prophecy
of the Old Testament concerned, primarily at least, con-
temporaneous history, or history so nearly contempora-
neous, that it required only common foresight and " old
experience" to look into it. Burke early shadowed
forth the French Revolution : Isaiah, on the same prin-
ciple, could forewarn Israel of its dangers, threaten sin-
ners with punishment, and promise protection to peni-
tents. Of course, we can understand such a view ; but
can we admit it and not reject Christianity? And let
us remember that, in arguing on the nature of inspira-
tion, we are not arguing in proof of Christianity ; but
that, admitting the truth of Christianity, we are inquir-
ing into somewhat which, as has been already observed,
is really internal to Christianity. . Most Christians are
ready to believe that the passages of the Old Testament
to which our Lord and his Apostles appealed, as proofs
of His Divine mission and of the truth of their teaching,
were really predictions, and not guesses. This is not
the place to enter at length into such a question. But,
if we just think of what Jacob said of Shiloh — Moses,

35 g AID3 TO FAITH. [Essay VII.

of a prophet like himself— David and others, of a great
Son of David — Isaiah, in his ninth and fifty-third chap*
ters, of a Child born, a Son given, called Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, and of a righteous Ser-
vant, on whom the Lord should lay the iniquity of us
all — Daniel, of Messiah the Prince, cut off, but not for
Himself, and of one like a Son of Man, to whom a king-
dom is given by the Ancient of days, an everlasting
kingdom", a dominion that shall not pass away — Haggai,
of the glory of the second temple, so much surpassing
that of the first — Malachi, of the forerunner of the Mes-
siah— and many prophecies of like kind ; we shall feel
that the burden of proof must lie with those who deny,
not with those who believe, that there were prophets,
who bore witness to the coming of the Christ centuries
before His birth." We may remember that these pre-
dictions have been preserved to us both in the original
Hebrew, and in translations made from the Hebrew be-
fore the birth of Christ, made, not by Christians, but by
jeWS_that the more ancient Jews did undeniably in-
terpret these prophecies, as pointing forward to a prince
who should be sent from heaven to save their own na-
tion, and to bless other nations in them. Compara-
tively modern Jews have explained some of these proph-
ecies away, because they too manifestly favour the
Christians; but even so, they continue to believe that
the Scriptures foretold a Messiah. Moreover^ we have
the clearest testimonies from Jews and Gentiles alike
(Jews and Gentiles who never became Christians, and
so are independent witnesses) that in the East generally,
Oriente toto, and especially among the Israelites them-
selves, there had prevailed an ancient and constant per-
suasion that by Divine appointment a Deliverer was to

* It matters little to this argument whether all the books of the Old Tes-
tament were written by those whose names they bear ; whether, for instance,
the last chapters of Isaiah were Isaiah's or some other's ; whether the book
of Daniel was written at the time of the captivity, or not collected till some
centuries later. It is certain they were all written before Christ ; and it in
them there be found prophecies of the Messiah, prophecies, be they many
or few, like precious stones imbedded in a rock; we have then the phenom-
enon existing, and we have to explain how it came. Idoncum, opmor,
testimonium divinitatis Veritas divinationis. (Tort. Apolog. c. 20.)

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 359

arise out of Judea, who should have dominion; and,
moreover, that he was impatiently expected in the
reigns of the early emperors of Rome. Jews, who have
lived since those times, have confessed that the period
presignified is apparently past. Now, it is quite cer-
tain that the most remarkable and most influential re-
ligious teacher that ever lived in any nation upon earth
did arise and live in Judea, at the time so marked and
agreed on. It is undoubted that He declared the pre-
dictions in question to have pointed to Him. His fol-
lowers have always claimed them as fulfilled in Him.
Of all religious revolutions, nay, of all revolutions,
moral, spiritual, social, or political, ever produced in
the world, He has produced the greatest, the most in-
fluential, the most extensive. As Christians, we, of
course, believe that He was the Christ ; and we are
justified in urging on the Jews such considerations as
the above, in proof that their own cherished Scriptures
pointed to Him.

Now, if the prophets really did centuries before
foresee an event, most unlikely, but which we have
witnessed as true, they must have had something more
than the inspiration of genius, or than the exalting of
their intuitional consciousness. For, whatever degree
of insight into the truth of things spiritual we may at-
tribute to such intuitional consciousness, and whatever
communion it may give with the mind of God, it can
hardly be said to make us partakers of God's omnis-
cience, or to endue us with His powers of foresight.

One of the favourite modes of evading such conclu-
sions as this, and so one of the favourite positions of the
low inspirationists is, that Nihil in scrwto quod non
prius in scriptove; a man can speak nothing but what
he thinks. In a sense this is true enough ; and, as a
general rule, we may suppose the holy men of old, who
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, to have
been first gifted with the knowledge of the future, and
then moved to communicate that knowledge to others.
But still, if there be an overruling and over-guiding
Providence as well as an informing and inspiring Spirit,

360 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIL

may not a man be guided to speak unconsciously words
of deep import ? We see this in the Old Testament in
the case of Balaam. If the history of him be not a false
legend or a mere myth, the Almighty told him that he
was to speak to Balak that word which was put into his
mouth. His will was quite the other way. He willed
to curse Israel, and so to obtain from Balak the wages
of unrighteousness ; but his own will was overruled by
the direct command of God. If Balaam prophesied, if
he prophesied, as most Christians have believed, not
only of the future fortunes of Israel, but of the future
coming of Christ ; it is certain that his extraordinary
knowledge could not have been the result of his purity
of heart qualifying him to see God, could not have
come from the clearing away of those clouds of sin, and
therefore of error, which darken the mental vision ; for
his heart was set upon covetousness, and he perished
with the enemies of God. The same, or much the same,
may be said of Caiaphas, who was altogether bent on
evil, and yet of whom the Evangelist testifies that " be-
ing High "Priest that year he prophesied." If miracles
are impossible, of course all this is impossible. But
how miracles can be impossible, unless God is impossi-
ble, it seems that we have yet to learn.

Though, therefore, we may not generally look for a
work of the Spirit through the mere bodily organs of
men, without an elevation of their souls ; we surely
have no power to limit the operations of God, or to say
that He may not, if He will, use the very unconscious
words of wicked men as well as the heart service of
pious men.

19. But farther, is it not true that AlmightyGod
has made even acts and histories to prophesy, inde-
pendently of any utterance of men's mouths ? Are
there not types in the Law, and through all the Old
Testament history, which have their antitypes in the
New Testament ? There are those, no doubt, who will
say that we can find historical parallels in profane, as
readily as in sacred, history. But are these really to
be compared with the sacrifice of Isaac typifying the

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 3G1

death and resurrection of Christ — with the history of
Joseph, sold by his brethren, and then exalted to be
their prince and saviour — with the brazen serpent,
lifted up to heal all that looked on it — with the passage
of the Red Sea, and other parables put forth by the
history of the Exodus — with the priesthood of Aaron,
the passover, the ceremonies on the day of atonement,
and the many Levitical rites forepicturing Christ —
with the kingly types, such as David and Solomon —
with the prophetic parallelism of Elijah and John the
Baptist — and the many others, too many to enumerate
now % * If there be, as the writers of the New Testa-
ment all assert, and as Christians have ever hitherto
believed, a complete system of type and antitype in
the Old and New Testament respectively ; to what can
we attribute this, but to an overruling Hand guiding
the fortunes of the chosen race, and of individuals in
that race, and to the continual presence of that Holy
Spirit who divideth to every man severally as He will?
Is not all this to be esteemed a special inspiration ?
And if all this is in the Old Testament, then, whatever
human elements there be in it, there is surely such a
Divine element as to make its books emphatically the
" Oracles of God," to which we may look as unmistak-
ably embodying His will and word. We may admit
that the word of God so embodied in the Scriptures
was designed to communicate to us great moral and
spiritual truths, that there was no purpose to give any
revelation of physical science or of mere general his-
tory. Yet if we have abundant evidence that Al-
mighty God chose the prophets and the books of the
Bible as channels for communicating His will to man-
kind, we have surely abundant evidence that they

* Professor Jowett thinks we must give up the types appealed to in the
New Testament, just as we do not press the patristic appeal to the scarlet
thread of Rahab, or the 318 followers of Abraham. That is to say, we must
attach no more importance to the language of the Apostles, or of our blessed
Lord Himself, than to the language of any Christian writer in the earlier
days of Christianity. The New Testament has appealed to types of Christ
in the Old Testament. The early Christians universally acknowledged such
types, but perhaps unwisely found moreover certain fanciful resemblances
unknown to the Apostles and Evangelists. Because the latter were fanciful,
must we conclude that the former were false?
16

3Q2 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VII.

would not be permitted to err in things pertaining to
God. It may not be proof that their language will
not be popular, and so possibly inaccurate, in matters
of science, or that their statements will be infallible in
the matter of a date or in other things immaterial ; but
it is surely proof enough that they would never be per-
mitted to mislead us in questions of faith ; for other-
wise they would bring us credentials to their faithful-
ness from God Himself, and with these credentials in
their hands, deceive, and mislead, and delude us.^

And here may we not see the fallacy of Coleridge's
view, who accepts Scripture where it " finds " him, but
not in its less interesting and merely historical records ?
If we go on this principle, where are we to stop ? If
we read the second book of Chronicles, perhaps we
may discover very little which " finds " us ; whereas,
if we read Baxter's ' Saint's Everlasting Best,' it may
" find " us in nearly every page. To carry out Cole-
ridge's principle, we ought to uncanonize, or reject the
inspiration of, the book of Chronicles, and set up as
canonical the book of Baxter. But, if our former
arguments be correct, and the general belief of Chris-
tians in all ages be true, the whole historical record of
the Old Testament is part of the great depository of
God's revealed will. One part may be more important
than another. But when we see that God spoke by
words of man, and also by acts of man — that even
actions were predictions — when we find Christ Him-
self and His Apostles citing the books of the Old Testa-
ment, as the " Scriptures," as the " Oracles of God,"
as " God-breathed " (Qeoirvevo-Ta) — surely we have no
right to say that one part "finds me " and another does
not, and to settle our own Canon accordingly. The
whole collection of the books of the Old Testament
comes to us with Divine credentials — prophecies in it
fulfilled after they were uttered — Christ's attestation to
them, that they all testified of Him— St. Paul's testi-
mony to them that they were " given by inspiration of
God" — and, having such Pivine credentials, we cannot

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 333

suppose that any of these books would mislead us, at
least iu things heavenly.

20. If all this holds of the Old Testament, it holds,
d fortiori, of the New ; for probably no one will con-
tend that the Apostles, with Christ's own mission, with
the gift of tongues and miraculous powers, with the
special promise of the Comforter and of guidance by
Him into all truth, with the assurance of Christ's own
presence, and with the command to preach on the
house-tops what He had told them in the ear, — were
in a worse position or more liable to error than the
prophets of the Old Testament. And, though we may
well believe that each individual Apostle, like every
Christian man, may have grown in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; yet
this belief need in no wise interfere with our acknowl-
edgment that messengers, specially accredited by God
to man, would never be permitted to deliver a false
message, or to mislead those whom they were so signal-
ly commissioned to lead.*

For Mr. Maurice's question, as to whether we ought
not to consider the inspiration of Holy Scripture like to
that inspiration for which all of us pray, there seems
but little difficulty in the reply. Undoubtedly, the

* Revelation has all along been progressive, but not on that account self-
contradictory. Abel offered the firstlings of his flock ; Abraham offered a
ram instead of his son; Moses instituted the Paschal sacrifice; John the
Baptist pointed to " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world;" St. Paul spoke of "Christ our Passover;" St. Peter of "the pre-
cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
There is the same testimony here through a course of at least four thousand
years ; but yet the knowledge was progressive. John the Baptist knew more
of Christ than all that before him had been born of woman, but less than the
least iu the kingdom of the Saviour. What is true of the knowledge of the
Church may be equally true of the knowledge of the Apostles. If they had
not been capable of growth in wisdom, they would not have been human ; but
no proof whatever has yet been given that the testimony of one Apostle is,
on points of Christian doctrine, in conflict with the testimony of another, or
that the more matured knowledge of any particular Apostle ever led him to
contradict, in the least degree, his own former witness to the truth. Cer-
tainly they themselves always appeal to the consistency of their own teaching,
and denounce all teaching which is inconsistent with their own. " Though
we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." (Gal. i. 8.) " If
there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
your house, neither bid him God speed." (2 John 10.)

3(J4 AIDS TO FAITH. [Ess at Y II

inspiration for which we pray is the same as the inspi-
ration of the writers of Scripture — that is to say, it is
the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit which guides not
only into holiness, but also into truth. Probably pious
men in general never begin any work of importance
without praying for grace and guidance ; but when they
do so, they do not expect to be answered with, for in-
stance, the gift of tongues. They ask for the wTord of
wisdom or the word of knowledge, not for the work-
ing of miracles; yet they look for it from one and
the selfsame Spirit. And surely we may admit that
that great Teacher of the Church may teach one in one
way and another in another. It may be His will to
give one a deep insight into spiritual mysteries, but yet
not to give him a knowledge of future events. To an-
other, at a particular period of the Church, or under a
peculiar dispensation, he may give the power of proph-
ecy, or the gift of tongues, or the working of miracles,
or such guidance and direction as shall render his tes-
timony, as to things heavenly, infallibly true. Are we
to deny that God can do so ? Or again— is it impossi-
ble for him to give such a knowledge except in the wTay
of giving a higher degree of sanctification, purifying
the soul from all that may darken the understanding,
and so sharpening the spiritual insight ? Such a view
of things is surely in direct opposition to the constant
record of the Bible. If it be true, it must convict the
writers of the books of the Bible of false testimony. Is
it not clearly set down that Balaam — that " the man of
God, who was disobedient to the word of the Lord "-—
that Jonah, who fled from God's presence — that Caia-
phas, even when compassing Christ's crucifixion — were
all empowered to speak of "future things, and some of
them sorely against their wills ? Although it is most
likely that God would in general use sanctified instru-
ments to speak to man of sacred things, yet, if the
record of the Bible be true, there may be a revelation
to the mind, and so through the mouths of men^ wdiich
is not the result of high sanctification, of purifying the
heart that it may see God. A man may have "the

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 3(55

gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge," may " speak with the tongues of men and
angels," and yet lack charity and be nothing.

21. And so, to pass to another view of the question,
Mr. Morell argues that the Divine or religious truth
can only be revealed to our highest and deepest intui-
tional consciousness. It is not to be received by the
senses, by the understanding, or by the reason, but
deeper down still in our inmost being. There is no
reason to quarrel with this statement so far as it goes.
Its fault is, that it is one-sided. " When it pleased God
to reveal his son in " St. Paul, doubtless the revelation
was not to the intellect only, but to the very heart of
hearts. But there may be abundant head-knowledge
without any such revelation to the soul and spirit. And
must we not distinguish here between objective and
subjective revelation? Of course objective revelation
must suppose a subject ; that is to say, if an object is to
be revealed, there must be a subject by which that ob-
ject may be embraced and conceived. But is it not
plain to common sense, setting aside all logical sub-
tilty, that there may be an outward manifesting (cfrave-
pcoats, if airoKaXv^L? be ambiguous) of God to man,
without any inward reception of Him to the soul ? And
if so, may not a man be taught, as Daniel or St. John,
by a vision of God, and yet, like Balaam or Jonah, not
have his soul converted to God? He may "see the
vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, and hav-
ing his eyes open ; " and yet his heart may not be
opened to know and to love God. It really seems as
it* Mr. Maurice, Mr. Morell, and others of similar sen-
timents, deny the possibility of this.* But on what
principle can it be denied, except on a principle which
rejects all that is miraculous, and which makes God,
not a Personal Being, but an impersonal influence ?

* Of course, Professor Baden Powell must have held this impossible, be-
cause he held that there was no contact point between the spiritual and the
physical worlds. They lie, according to him, in two distinct planes, which
Can never come in contact. But to'what must such a theory lead short of
Materialism and Atheism, in minds of the common stamp?

g5S Air)S T0 FAITH. [Essay VIL

22. But if we believe that God lias in different ages
authorized certain persons to communicate objective
truth to mankind, it* in the Old Testament history and
the books of the prophets we find manifest indications
of the Creator, it is then a secondary consideration, and
a question on which we may safely agree to differ,
whether or not every book of the Old Testament was
written so completely under the dictation of God's Holy
Spirit, that every word, not only doctrinal, but also
historical or scientific, must be infallibly correct and
true. The whole collection of the books has been pre-
served providentially to the Church as the record of
God's early dealings with mankind, and especially with
one chosen race, as the collection of the prophecies and
of the religious instruction which God was pleased to
communicate to man in the preparatory dispensations
of His grace : and with these there is a book of sacred
psalmody, embodying the religious experience of men
living under the Theocracy, some at least of the hymns
contained in it evincing the power of prophecy in their
writers. Whatever conclusion, then, may be arrived
at as to the infallibility of the writers on matters of
science or of history, still the whole collection of the
books will be really the oracles of God, the Scriptures
of God, the record' and depository of God's supernatu-
ral revelations in early times to man. And we may
remember that our Blessed Lord quotes the Psalms as
the Scripture, adding, " And the Scripture cannot be
broken."

23. It has been already observed that what holds
good of the Old Testament holds a fortiori of the New.
If the writers of it were the accredited messengers from
God to man, taught by Christ, assured by Him of the
teaching of His "Holy Spirit, sent to bring to man the
knowledge of God and of His highest truths, we can-
not doubt that that Spirit, who was to guide them into
all truth, would never let them err in things pertaining
to God. This is really what we want. We want to be
assured that we have an infallible depository of relig-
ious truth. And if wo are satisfied that the Apostles

Essay VII.] LNSPIEATION. 3^

were accredited messengers for delivering God's mes-
sage and communicating God's truth to the world,
clearly we have this assurance. It may, no doubt, he
true that all ministers of Christ in all ages are God's
accredited messengers ; but the difference is this : the
Apostles had new truths to deliver direct from heaven ;
other ministers of Christ have old truths to impress —
truths which may perhaps be new to their hearers, but
which are old to the Church. In the one case there is
a direct commission with a need of infallibility in things
spiritual ; in the other the mission is through the inter-
vention of others, and with the power of correcting
errors by appealing to the authority of the written
record.

If we can establish this much, then there seems no
need to fear the admission of a human element, as well
as a Divine, in Scripture. The Apostles had the treas-
ure of the Gospel in earthen vessels. The Holy Spirit
taught the Churches through the instrumentality of
men of like passions with ourselves. The difficulty of
enunciating a definite theory of inspiration consists ex-
actly in this — in assigning the due weight respectively
to the Divine and the human elements. A human ele-
ment there clearly was. Though in instances like those
of Balaam and Caiaphas we seem to have something
more like organic inspiration, yet in ordinary cases
God was pleased to take the nobler instruments of
man's thoughts and hearts through which to communi-
cate a knowledge of Himself to the world, rather than
to act through the organs of speech, moving men's
mouths as mere machines. With all the pains and
ingenuity which have been bestowed upon the subject,
no charge of error, even in matters of human knowl-
edge, has ever yet been substantiated against any of
the writers of Scripture. But, even if it had been
otherwise, is it not conceivable that there might have
been infallible Divine teaching in all things spiritual
and heavenly, whilst on mere matters of history, or of
daily life, Prophets and Evangelists might have been
suffered to write as men ? Even if this were true, we

368

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VII.

need not be perplexed or disquieted, so we can be
agreed that the Divine element was ever such as to
secure the infallible truth of Scripture in all things
Divine.

24. All this, of course, is applicable to questions of
physical science. Scripture was not given to teach us
science, but to teach us religion ; it may not have been
needful that the inspired writers should have been ren-
dered infallible in matters of science, nor is it at all
likely that they should have been directed to teach to
the ancient world truths which would anticipate the
discoveries either of Newton or of Cuvier. It would
have been almost as strange if they had not used pop-
ular expressions in writing on such subjects, as if they
had written not in the tongue of their own people, but in
a new dialect more refined and philosophical. But may
we not ask, whether in this question of physical science,
as in many like things, sceptical writers have not been
sharp-sighted on minute discrepancies, whilst they
have been blind to the great general harmony of truth ?
It is ever so ; each petty difference of date, each little
inconsistency in two concurrent narratives, every, the
slightest appearance of doubtful morality, anything like
a supposed repugnance to what wTe consider the neces-
sary attributes of the Most High, have been dwelton
and magnified, and used as objections to the inspiration
of Holy Writ ; whilst the general truth of its history,
the purity and holiness of its general moral teaching,
the grandeur and sublimity of its doctrines concerning
God, are altogether forgotten or concealed. Yet is it
not true that, both in moral and in physical science,
nothing short of miraculous inspiration can account for
the superior knowledge of the writers of the Old Testa-
ment compared with the most enlightened sages of
heathen antiquity? The Jewish philosophers, like
Philo, felt that the Scriptures of their own prophets
bad brought in simple language to their unlettered fel-
low-countrymen moral and spiritual truths, after which
the Platonists had been " seeking, if haply they might
feel after them and find them." Greeks, J ike Justin

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 86q

Martyr, who had tried one school of philosophy after
another, discovered in the Gospel all that was most
valuable in the teaching of all schools. And may not
we, who have come upon an age of rapid discovery in
physical science, confess that the account given of the
Creator and His works in the Bible was an anticipation
and is an epitome of all that has lately come to light ?
The telescope has revealed to us worlds and systems of
worlds rolling in unbroken order through infinity of
space ; the microscope has shown us living and organ-
ised beings so small as to bewilder the mind with their
minuteness as the suns and planets bewilder it with
their vastness ; the geologist takes us back through
countless ages, the records of which are indelibly en-
graven " as with lead in the rock for ever." And the
Bible, but no other ancient book that is written, had
told us that the Being who created all things was such
that the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens could not
contain Him, that He was the High and lofty One in-
habiting eternity, but that though He had His dwelling
so high, yet He humbled Himself to behold the things
that are in heaven and earth, that a sparrow did not
fall without Him, that the very hairs of man's head
wTere numbered by Him. Infinite greatness, infinite
minuteness, infinity of duration, infinity of action, eter-
nity of past existence and of past operation, as well as
an eternity of the future, are all distinctly predicated
in the Scriptures of the mind of Him who made us all.
And here for the first, time, now in the nineteenth cen-
tury, we find the same infinity in heaven and in earth,
and in the sea, and under the earth.

Why, then, must we be puzzled because some re-
cently discovered geological phenomena seem hard to
reconcile with a few verses in one chapter of Genesis ?
Are we to forget the marvellous harmony between
God's word and His works, which a general view of
both convinces us of, because there are some small
fragments of both, which we have not yet learned to fit
into each other? Nay ! even here,wTe may fairly say, that
the harmony already found is greater than the as yet
10*

370 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIL

unexplained discord. For, putting aside all doubtful
interpretations and difficult questions concerning the
six days of creation and the like, these two facts are
certain ; all sound criticism and all geological inquiry
prove them alike ; viz., first, that the original creation
of the universe was at a period indefinitely, if not infi-
nitely, distant from the present time ; and secondly,
that of all animated beings, the last that came into ex-
istence was man. Geology has taught us both these
facts ; but the first verse of Genesis clearly teaches the
first, and the twenty-sixth verse teaches the second.

To touch but for a moment on one other subject which
has been so strongly pressed of late, the uniform preva-
lence of law, not only in things inanimate, but where
there is life and even reason and morality — can any-
thing be more consistent than this with the whole of
the Old Testament? Indeed its peculiar teaching from
first to last may be said to have been that God is a God
of order ; that He has impressed His law on all crea-
tion ; that all things serve Him, all things obey Him ;
that to break lawTs, whether moral or physical, is inev-
itably to entail suffering ; and that even rational and
spiritual beings, even in their rational and spiritual
natures and capacities, are subject to laws which can-
not be broken ; that the sins of the fathers go down in
sin and sorrow to the children ; and that even repent-
ance, though it may save the soul, cannot undo the sin
or avert the suffering. There is nowhere in creation or
in history written more plainly the record of order and
law.

25. Surely such thoughts as these seem fit to satisfy
us, that God's works rightly read are not likely to con-
tradict God's word rightly interpreted. There will be
for a time, perhaps for all time, apparent difficulties.
When new questions arise, at first many will feel that
it is hopeless to attempt to solve them. Some will
despair, some will try to smother inquiry ; some will
rush into Atheism, and others will fall back into super-
stition. Patience is the proper temper for an age like
our own, which is in many ways an age of transition.

Essay VII.] INSPIRATION. 371

The discoveries of Galileo seemed more alarming to his
contemporaries than any discoveries in geology or sta-
tistics can seem to us. We see no difficulty in Galileo's
discoveries now. Such things, then, are probably the
proper trials of our faith. Sober views, patience,
prayer, a life of godliness, and a good conscience, will,
no doubt, keep us from making shipwreck of faith.
What now seems like a shadow may only be the proof
that there is a light behind it. And even if at times
there should come shadows seeming like deep night,
we may hope that the dawn of the morning is but the
nearer.

ESSAY VIII.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY VIII.

The Essay is addressed to those
who attach some preternatural
effieacy to the Redeemers suffer
ings for men, but propose to alter
the terms in which it is usually
conveyed 375

I.— The Scripture doctrine . . . . 376

1. In the three first Evangelists 377

2. Especially the institution of

the Last Supper 378

3. In St. John's Gospel . . . . 379

4. The Baptist .... . . 381

5. The Apostolic teaching . . 382

6. The Epistles in general .. 3S3

7. Epistle of St. James . . . . SS4

8. Epistles of St. Peter .. .. 3S5

9. Epistles of St. John .. .. 3SC

10. Epistles of St. Paul . . . . 3S7

11. Epistle to the Hebrews .. 3SS

12. Harmony of Scripture upon

the Atonement 381

II.— 1. The doctrine of Church

writers 391

PAGE.

2. Atonement often implied in

another doctrine, in con-
troversies 392

3. Wrong account by modern

writers of patristic teaching 393

4. Irenaeus 394

5. Athanasius 396

6. Other writers 398

7. Anselm 400

8. How far original 402

9. " Sacrifice" and " Satisfaction1' 403

10. Defects of Anselm's system 404

11. Summary 405

III. — 1. Modern repugnance to the

doctrine 406

2. Guilt caused by others and

cured by another . . . . 406

3. Sin revealed to us by its

crowning act — the death of

theLord 409

4. The wrath of God . . . . 411

5. Did Christ bear it ? .... 412

6. Conclusion 418

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

Jesus, the Son of God, died on the Cross to redeem
mankind from sin and death. This is the truth which
for eighteen centuries has been preached to Jew and
Gentile ; the truth which the Apostles took in their
mouths when they went to teach Christianity to nations
who had never heard of Christ before. The doctrine
of Reconciliation has not escaped the fate of other
Christian truths : it has done and is doing its work in
converting the world, and consoling many a crushed
heart ; but at the same time the terms in which it
should be set forth have been disputed, and sometimes
the doctrine itself denied. Recent writers have dis-
cussed the subject, avowing for the most part the wish
to preserve the tenet itself ; but in some cases dealing
so hardly with the evidence on which it rests, as to
leave an impression that the doctrine of the Atone-
ment is a modern invention, which can well be dis-
pensed with in teaching Christianity ; and some even
speak of it as a dishonour to God the Father, in that
it represents Him as accepting the sufferings of the
innocent foi the guilty. The present Essay is directed
to those who profess to attach to the sufferings of the
Redeemer some preternatural efficacy, beyond that of
mere example, yet who would substitute for the re-
ceived account of their effect some other doctrine.
With those who utterly deny the doctrine ef Atone-
ment we have nothing here to do, except to wish them
an increased consciousness of the need of a purgation
from sin : for when Christ is needed, then, and not
sooner, He will be found ; when man sees the serpent
twining round his limbs, and feels serpent-poison beat-

376 AIDS T0 FAITH. [EB3AYVIII.

ing in his blood, and sees over all his beauty and glory
the serpent's defiling trail, he will look to the Son of
Man lifted up, and be healed. But the promise that
the doctrine shall in spirit be preserved, but heightened
and spiritualized, has much attraction for the inquiring.
In approaching them with the key of a profounder
gnosis, men profess to give to the well-worn pages of
the Bible the freshness and originality which is all they
need. And the attempt in this Essay will be to show
that the doctrine of the Atonement, although a mys-
tery, is made known to us in the Bible in certain strong
and definite touches which allow of no mistake ; that
this doctrine has been, in fact, continuously held and
taught in the Church, altering from time to time in
form, but in substance neither gaining anything nor
losing anything ; and that the difficulties, which beset
this as they do other mysteries, are not at all lightened
by the remedies proposed on behalf of human reason,
but rather increased.

I. Much has been made of the supposed silence of
our Lord as to the atoning virtue of His death ; and
it has even been hinted that in this respect the words
of Jesus are at variance with those of His Apostles.*
If these were so, the question would bear no discus-
sion ; and much else would fall to the ground at the
same time. The only proof of it which we are offered
is, that Christ Himself "never uses the word sacrifice"!
as applied to His own life or death. But this is a
purely artificial test. It remains still to inquire what
the Lord does say of that death ; for such is the co-
piousness of language, that an act which has the nature
of a sacrifice may be described without the use of that
particular word. When He speaks of " My blood of
the new Covenant," no doubt the word sacrifice is dis-
pensed with ; but there must be very few, we should

* Professor Jowctt on the Epistles, ii. 556. " In [the words of Christ] is
contained the inner life of mankind and of the Church ; there too the indi-
vidual beholds, as in a glass, the image of a goodness which is not of this
world. To rank their authority below that of the Apostles and Evangelists,
is to give up the last hope of reuniting Christendom in itself, and of making
Christianity an universal religion."

t Ibid.

ESSAY VIII.] TIIE DEATH OF CUEIST. 3^

hope, who cannot discern in such words the " sacrificial
allusion."

1. The three first Evangelists, as we know, agree
in showing that Jesus unfolded His message to the
disciples by degrees. He wrought the miracles that
were to be the credentials of the Messiah ; He laid
down the great principles of the Gospel morality until
He had established in the minds of the Twelve the
conviction that He was the Christ of God. Then as
the clouds of gloom grew darker, and the malice of the
Jews became more intense. He turned a new page in
His teaching. Drawing from His disciples the confes-
sion of their faith in Him as Christ, He then passed
abruptly, so to speak, to the truth that remained to be
learnt in the last few months of His ministry, that His
work included suffering as well as teaching.* He was
instant in pressing this unpalatable doctrine home to
His disciples, from this time to the end. Four occa-
sions when He prophesied His bitter death are on rec-
ord, and they are probably only examples out of many
more.f We grant that in none of these places does the
word sacrifice occur ; and that the mode of speaking is
somewhat obscure, as addressed to minds unprepared,
even then, to bear the full weight of a doctrine so re-
pugnant to their hopes. But that He must (Set) go and
meet death ; that the powers of sin and of this world
are let loose against Him for a time, so that He shall
be betrayed to the Jews, rejected, delivered by them
to the Gentiles, and by them mocked and scourged,
crucified, and slain ; and that all this was done to
achieve a foreseen work, and accomplish all things
written of Him by the prophets — these we do certainly
find. They invest the death of Jesus with a peculiar
significance ; they set the mind inquiring what the
meaning can be of this hard necessity that is laid on
Him. For the answer we look to other places ; but at
least there is here no contradiction to the doctrine of
sacrifice, though the Lord does not yet say, " I bear
the wrath of God against your sins in your stead ; I

* Matt. xvi. 20, 21. t Matt. xvi. 21.

gKg AIDS TO TAITH. [Essay VIIL

become a curse for you." Of the two sides of this mys-
terious doctrine, — that Jesus dies for us willingly, and
that He dies to bear a doom laid on Him as of neces-
sity, because some one must bear it, — it is the latter
side that is made prominent. In all the passages it
pleases Jesus to speak not of His desire to die, but of
the burden laid on Him, and the power given to others
against Him.

2. Had the doctrine been explained no further,
there would have been much to wait for. But the
series of announcements in these passages leads up to
one more definite and complete. It cannot be denied
(we might almost say that before Mr. Jowett it never
was denied) that the words of the institution of the Lord's
Supper speak most distinctly of a sacrifice. " Drink
ye all of this, for this is My blood of the new cov-
enant," or, to follow St. Luke, " the new covenant in
My blood." We are carried back by these words to
the first covenant, to the altar with twelve pillars, and
the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings of oxen, and the
blood of the victims sprinkled on the altar and on the
people, and the words of Moses as he sprinkled it:
" Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord
hath made with you concerning all these words."* JSTo
interpreter has ever failed to draw from these passages
the true meaning: " When My sacrifice is accom-
plished, My blood shall be the sanction of the new cov-
enant." The word sacrifice is wanting ; but sacrifice
and nothing else is described. And the words are no
mere figure used for illustration, and laid aside when
they have served that turn, " Do this in remembrance
of Me." They are the words in which the Church is
to interpret the act of Jesus to the end of time. They
are reproduced exactly by St. Paul.f Then, as now,
Christians met together, and by a solemn act declared
that they counted the blood of Jesus as a sacrifice
wherein a new covenant was sealed ; and of the blood
of that sacrifice they partook by faith, professing them-

* Exod. xxiv. t 1 Cor. xi. 25.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CUEIST. 379

selves thereby willing to enter the covenant and be
sprinkled with the blood.

3. So far we have examined the three " synoptic"
Gospels. They follow a historical order. In the early
chapters of all three the doctrine of onr Lord's sacrifice
is not found, because He will first answer the question
about Himself, " Who is this ? " before he shows them
" "What is his work ? " But at length the announce-
ment is made, enforced, repeated ; until, when the feet
of the betrayer are ready for their wicked errand, a
command is given which secures that the death of
Jesus shall be described for ever as a sacrifice and
nothing else, sealing a new covenant, and carrying good
to many. Lest the doctrine of Atonement should seem
to be an afterthought, as indeed De Wette has tried to
represent it, St. John preserves the conversation with
Nicodemus, which took place early in the ministry ;
and there, under the figure of the brazen serpent lifted
up, the atoning virtue of the Lord's death is fully set
forth. " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder-
ness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up ; that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have eternal life."* As in this intercessory act, the
image of the deadly, hateful, and accursed f reptile be-
came by God's decree the means of health to all who
looked on it earnestly, so does Jesus in the form of sin-
ful man, of a deceiver of the people,;): of Antichrist,§ of
one accursed,] become the means of our salvation ; so
that whoever fastens the earnest gaze of faith on Him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. There is even
a significance in the word t]p"i, which in older Hebrew
meant to lift up in the widest sense, but began in the
Aramaic to have the restricted meaning of lifting up
for punishment.^ With Christ the lifting up was a
seeming disgrace, a true triumph and elevation: But
the context in which these verses occur is as important

* John iii. 14, 15. t Gen. iii. 14, 15.

X Matt, xxvii. 63. § Matt. xii. 24 ; John xviii. S3.

|| Gal. iii. 13.

*[f So Tholuck and Knapp, ' Opuscula,' p. 217. The treatise of Knapp on
this discourse is valuable throughout.

g gO AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VIII.

as the verses themselves. Nicodemus comes as an in-
quirer ; he is told that man must be born again, and
then he is directed to the death of Jesus as the means
of that regeneration. The earnest gaze of the wounded
soul is to be the condition of its cure ; and that gaze
is to be turned not to Jesus on the mountain, or in the
temple, but on the Cross. This, then, is no passing al-
lusion, but it is the substance of the Christian teaching
addressed to an earnest seeker after truth.

Another passage claims a reverent attention — " If
any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever, and
the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will
give for the life of the world."* lie is the bread ; and
He will give the bread, f If His presence on earth
were the*" expected food, it was given already ; but
would he speak of "drinking His blood" (ver. 53),
which can only refer to the dead ? It is on the Cross
that He will afford this food to His disciples. We
grant that' this whole passage has occasioned as much
disputing among Christian commentators as it did
among the Jews who heard it ; and for the same reason
— for the hardness of the saying. But there stands the
saying ; and no candid person can refuse to see a refer-
ence in it to the death of Him that speaks.

In that discourse, which has well been called the
Prayer of Consecration offered by our High Priest,
there is another passage which cannot be alleged as
evidence fo one who thinks that any word applied by
Jesus to His disciples and Himself must bear in both
cases precisely the same sense, but which is really per-
tinent to this inquiry : — " Sanctify them through Thy
truth : Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into
the world, even so have I also sent them into the
world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they
also might be sanctified through the truth.J The word

* John vi. 51.

t Some, omitting %v iycb Suxrco, would read, "And my flesh is the bread
that I will give for the life of the world." So Tertullian seems to have read
" Panis quern ego dedero pro salute mundi caro mea est." The sense is the same
with the omission ; but the received reading may be successfully defended.

X John xviii. 17-1'J.

Essay VIII.] TUE DEATH OF CHEIST. 3gj

ayLa&iv, "sanctify," "consecrate,7' is used in the Sep-
tnagint for the offering of sacrifice,* and for the dedi-
cation of a man to the Divine service. f Here the
present tense, " I consecrate," nsed in a discourse in
which our Lord says He is u no more in the world," is
conclusive against the interpretation " I dedicate My
life to thee ;" for life is over. No self-dedication,
except that by death, can now be spoken of as present.
" I dedicate Myself to Thee, in My death, that these
may be a people consecrated to Thee ;" such is the
great thought in this sublime passage, which suits well
with His other declaration, that the blood of His sacri-
fice sprinkles them for a new covenant with God. To
the great majority of expositors from Chrysostom and
Cyril, the doctrine of reconciliation through the death
of Jesus is asserted in these verses.

The Redeemer has already described Himself as the
Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, $
taking care to distinguish His death from that of one
who dies against his will in striving to compass some
other aim : " Therefore doth my Father love Me, be-
cause I lay down My life that I might take it again.
ISTo man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of My-
self. I have power to lay it down, and I have power
to take it again."

Other passages that relate to His death will occur
to the memory of any Bible reader. The corn of
wheat that dies in the ground to bear much fmit,§ is
explained by His own words elsewhere, where He says
that He came " to minister, and to give His life as a
ransom for many."[

4. Thus, then, speaks Jesus of Himself. "What say
His witnesses of Him ? " Behold the Lamb of God,"
says the Baptist, " which taketh away the sins of the
world."*!" Commentators differ about the allusions im-
plied in that name. But take any one of their opinions,
and a sacrifice is implied. Is it the Paschal lamb that
is referred to ? Is it the lamb of the daily sacrifice ?

* Levit. xxii. 2. t Numb. iii. 15. % John x. 11, 17, 18.

§ John x. 24. | Matt. xx. 28. If John i. 29.

332 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VIII.

Either way the death of the victim is brought before
us. But the allusion in all probability is to the well-
known prophecy of Isaiah (liii.)j to the Lamb brought
to the slaughter, who bore our griefs and carried our
sorrows.*

5. The Apostles after the Resurrection preach no
moral system, but a belief in and love of Christ, the
crucified and risen Lord, through whom, if they repent,
men shall obtain salvation. This was Peter's preach-
ing on the day of Pentecost ;f and he appealed boldly
to the Prophets on the ground of an expectation of a
suffering Messiah.;); Philip traced out for the Eunuch,
in that picture of suffering holiness in the well-known
chapter of Isaiah, the lineaments of Jesus of Naza-
reth^ The first sermon to a Gentile household pro-
claimed Christ slain and risen, and added " that through
His name whosoever believeth in Him. shall receive
remission of sins."|| Paul at Antioch preaches " a
Saviour Jesus ;"T " through this Man is preached unto
you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that be-
lieve are justified from all things from which ye could
not be justified by the law of "Moses."** At Thessa-
lonica all that we learn of this Apostle's preaching is
" that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again
from the dead : and this Jesus, whom I preach unto
you, is Christ."ff Before Agrippa he declared that he
had preached always " that Christ should suffer, and
that He should be the first that should rise from the
dead;"^ and it was this declaration that convinced his
royal hearer that he was a crazed fanatic. The ac-
count of the first founding of the Church in the Acts

* See this passage discussed fully in the notes of Meyer, Lange {Bibel-
werke), and Alford. The reference to the Paschal Lamb finds favour with
Grotius and others ; the reference to Isaiah is approved by Chrysostom and
many others. The taking away of sin (alpeiv) of the Baptist, and the bear-
ing it ((pepew, Sept.) of Isaiah, have one meaning, and answer to the Hebrew
word 2X1153 • To take the sins on himself is to remove them from the sinners ;
and howVan this be through his death except in the way of expiation by that
death itself?

t Acts ii. X Acts iii. 18.

§ Acts viii. ; Isai. liii. H Acts x.

If Acts xiii. 23. ** Acts xiii. 38, 39.

U Acts xvii. 3. XX Acts xxvi. 23.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 3g3

of the Apostles is concise and fragmentary ; and some-
times we have hardly any means of judging what place
the sufferings of Jesus held in the teaching of the Apos-
tles ; but when we read that they " preached Jesus,"
or the like, it is only fair to infer from other passages
that the Cross of Christ was never concealed, whether
Jews, or Greeks, or barbarians were the listeners.
And this very pertinacity shows how much weight
they attached to the facts of the life of our Lord.
They did not merely repeat in each new place the pure
morality of Jesus as He uttered it in the Sermon on the
Mount : of such lessons we have no record. They
took in their hands, as the strongest weapon, the fact
that a certain Jew crucified afar off in Jerusalem was
the Son of God, who had died to save men from their
sins ; and they offered to all alike an interest, through
faith, in the resurrection from the dead of this outcast
of His own people. No wonder that Jews and Greeks,
judging in their worldly way, thought this strain of
preaching came of folly or madness, and turned from
what they thought unmeaning jargon.

6. We are able to complete from the Epistles our
account of the teaching of the Apostles on the Doctrine
of Atonement. " The Man Christ Jesns " is the media-
tor between God and man, for in Him the human nature
in its sinless purity is lifted up to the Divine, so that
He, exempt from guilt, can plead for the guilty.* Thus
He is the second Adam that shall redeem the sin of the
first ; the interest of men are bound up in Him, since
He has power to take them all into Himself, f This
salvation was provided by the Father, to " reconcile us
to Himself ;"J to whom the name of " Saviour" thus
belongs ;§ and our redemption is a signal proof of the
love of God to us.|| Not less is it a proof of the love
of Jesus, since He freely lays down His life for us —
offers it as a precious gift, capable of purchasing all
the lost.^f But there is another side of the truth more

* 1 Tim. ii. 5; 1 John. ii. 1, 2; Heb. vii. 25.

t Eph. v. 29, 80; Rom. xii. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 22; Rom. v. 12, 17.

X 2 Cor. v. 18. § Luke i. 47. || 1 John ir. 10.

1f 1 Tim. ii. G; Tit. ii. 14; Eph. i. 7. Compare Matt. xx. 28.

334 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIIL

painful to our natural reason. How came this exhibi-
tion of Divine love to be needed ? Because wrath had
already gone out against man. The clouds of God's
anger gathered thick over the whole human race ; they
discharged themselves on Jesus only. God has made
Him to be sin for us who knew no sin.* He is made
" a curse " (a thing accursed) for us, that the curse that
hangs over us may be removed. f He bore our sins in
His own body on the tree4 There are those who
would see on the page of the Bible only the sunshine
of the Divine love ; but the muttering thunders of
Divine wrath against sin are heard there also : and He
who alone was no child of wrath, meets the shock of
the thunderstorm, becomes a curse for us, and a vessel
of wrath ; and the rays of love break out of that thun-
der-gloom and shine on the bowed head of Him who
hangs on the Cross, dead for our sins.

We have spoken, and advisedly, as if the New
Testament were, as to this doctrine, one book in har-
mony with itself. That there are in the New Testa-
ment different types of the one true doctrine, may be
admitted without peril to. the doctrine. The principal
types are four in number.,.

7. In the Epistle of James there is a remarkable
absence of all explanations of the doctrine of the Atone-
ment. But this admission does not amount to so much
as may at first appear. True, the key-note of the Ejris-
tle is that the Gospel is the Law made perfect, and that
it is a practical moral system, in which man finds him-
self free to keep the Divine law. But with him Christ
is no mere lawgiver appointed to impart the Jewish
system. He knows that Elias is a man like himself;
but of the Person of Christ he speaks in a different
spirit. He calls himself " a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ," who is " the Lord of Glory." He
speaks of the Word of Truth, of which Jesus has been
the utterer. He knows that faith in the Lord of Glory
is inconsistent with time-serving and " respect of per-

* 2 Cor. v. 21. + Gal. iii. 13. X 1 Pet. ii. 24.

Essay VIIL] THE DEATH OF CHEIST. og5

sons." * "There is one lawgiver," lie says, "who is
able to save and to destroy ; " f and this refers no doubt
to Jesus, whose second coining he holds up as a motive
to obedience. £ These and like expressions remove this
Epistle far out of the sphere of Ebionitish teaching.
The inspired writer sees the Saviour, in the Father's
glory, preparing to return to judge the quick and dead.
He puts forth Christ as Prophet and King, for he makes
Him teacher and judge of the world ; but the office of
the Priest he does not dwell on. Far be it from us to
say that he knows it not. Something must have taken
place before he could treat them with confidence, as
free creatures, able to resist temptations, and even to
meet temptations with joy. He treats " your faith " as
something founded already, not to be prepared by this
epistle. § His purpose is a purely practical one. There
is no intention to unfold a Christology, such as that
which makes the Epistle to the Romans so valuable.
Assuming that Jesus has manifested Himself, and
begotten anew the human race, he seeks to make them
pray with undivided hearts, and be considerate to the
poor, and strive with lusts, for which they and not God
are responsible ; and bridle their tongues, and show
their fruits by their works. ||

8. In the teaching of St. Peter the doctrine of the
Person of our Lord is connected strictly with that of
His work as Saviour and Messiah. The frequent men-
tion of His sufferings shows the prominent place he
would give them ; and he puts forward as the ground
of his own right to teach, that he was " a witness of the
sufferings of Christ." T The atoning virtue of those
sufferings he dwells on with peculiar emphasis ; and
not less so on the purifying influence of the Atonement
on the hearts of believers. He repeats again and again
that Christ died for us ; ** that He bare our sins in His

* James i. 1, ii. 1, i. IS. t James iv. 12.

% James v. 7-9. § James i. 2, 3, 21.

| See Neander, ' Pflanzung,' b. vi. c. S; Schmid, 'Theologie der N. T.,'
part ii. ; and Doruer, ' Christologie,' vol. i. p. 95.

T 1 Pet. v. 1. ** 1 Pet. ii. 21, iii. 18, iv. 1.

17

386 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay Till.

own body on the tree. * lie bare them ; and what
does this phrase suggest, but the goat that " shall bear "
the iniquities of the people off into the land that was
not inhabited ? f or else the feeling the consequences of
sin, as the word is used elsewhere % % We have to
choose between the cognate ideas of sacrifice and sub-
stitution. Closely connected with these statements are
those which connect moral reformation with the death
of Jesus. He bare our sins that we might live unto
righteousness. His death is our life. We are not to
be content with a self-satisfied contemplation of our
redeemed state, but to live a life worthy of it. § In
these passages the whole Gospel is contained ; we are
justified by the death of Jesus, who bore our sins that
we might be sanctified and renewed to a life of godli-
ness. And from this Apostle we hear again the name
of " the Lamb," as well as from John the Baptist ; and
the passage of Isaiah comes back upon ns with unmis-
takable clearness. We are redeemed " with the pre-
cious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot." || Every word carries us back to the
Old Testament and its sacrificial system : the spotless
victim, the release from sin by its blood (elsewhere, i.
2, by the sprinkling of its blood), are here ; not the type
and shadow, but the truth of them ; not a ceremonial
purgation, but an effectual reconcilement of man and
God.

9. In the inspired writings of John we are struck at
once with the emphatic statements as to the Divine
and human natures of Christ. A right belief in the
incarnation is the test of a Christian man ; % we must
believe that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and that
He is manifested to destroy the works of the devil. **
And, on the other hand, He who has come in the flesh
is the One who alone has been in the bosom of the

* 1 Pet. ii. 24. If there were any doubt that " for us " (vircp y/xwv) means
" in our stead" (see verse 21), this' 24th verse, which explains the former,
would set it at rest. f Lev. xvi. 22. % Lev. xx. 17, 10.

§ 1 Pet. ii. 21-25, iii. 15-18.

|| 1 Pet. i. 18, 19, with Isaiah liii. 7.

II 1 John iv. 2; John i. 14; 2 John 7. ** 1 John iii. 8.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CUEIST. 3gy

Father, seen the things that human eyes have never
seen, and has come to declare them nnto us. * This
Person, at once divine and human, is " the propitiation
for our sins," our " advocate with the Father," sent
into the world " that we might live through him ; " and
the means was His laying down His life for us, which
should make us ready to lay down our lives for the
brethren, f And the moral effect of His redemption
is, that " the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from
all sin." £ The intimate connection between His work
and our holiness is the main subject of his first Epistle :
" Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." §
As with St. Peter so with St. John, every point of the
doctrine of the Atonement comes out with abundant
clearness. The substitution of another who can bear
our sins, for us who cannot ; the sufferings and death
as the means of our redemption, our justification there-
by, and our progress in holiness as the result of our
justification.

10. To follow out as fully in the more voluminous
writings of St. Paul the passages that speak of our
salvation would far transgress the limits of our space.
Man, according to this Apostle, is a transgressor of the
law. His conscience tells him that he cannot act up
to that law which, the same conscience admits, is divine,
and binding upon him. Through the old dispensations
man remained in this condition. Even the law of
Moses could not justify him : it only by its strict
behests held up a mirror to conscience that its frailness
might be seen. Christ came, sent by the mercy of our
Father who had never forgotten us ; given to, not
deserved by us. He came to reconcile men and God,
by dying on the Cross for them and bearing their
punishment in their stead. || He is " a propitiation
through faith in his blood : " ®[ words which most peo-

* 1 John i. 2, iv. 14; John i. 14-18.

t 1 John ii. 1, 2, iv. 9, 10, v. 11-13, iii. 1G, v. C, i. 7 ; John xi. 51.

X 1 John i. 7. § 1 John iii. 9.

I! 2 Cor. v. 14-21 ; Rom. v. 6-8. These two passages are decisive as to
the fact of substitution ; they might be fortified with many others.

Tl Rom. iii. 25, 26. Compare Levit. xvi. 15. 'lAao-T-fjpiov means " victim
for expiation."

ggg AIDS TO FAITII. [Essay VIII.

pie will find unintelligible except in reference to the
Old Testament and its sacrifices. He is the ransom, or
price paid, for the redemption of man from all iniquity.*
The wrath of God was against man ; but it did. not fall
on man. God made His Son " to be sin for ns " though
He knew no sin ; and Jesus suffered though men had
sinned. By this act God and man were reconciled, f
On the side of man trust and love and hope take the
place of fear and of an evil conscience ; on the side of
God, that terrible wrath of His, which is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men, is turned away, f The question whether we are
reconciled to God only, or God is also reconciled to us,
might be discussed on deep metaphysical grounds ; but
we purposely leave that on one side at present, content
to show that at all events the intention of God to punish
man is averted by this " propitiation" and " reconcile-
ment."

11. Different views are held about the authorship
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, by modern critics. But
its numerous points of contact with the other Epistles
of St. Paul must be recognized. In both, the incom-
pleteness of Judaism is dwelt on ; redemption from sin
and guilt is what religion has to do for men, and this
the law failed to secure. In both, reconciliation and
forgiveness and a new moral power in the believers are
the fruits of the work of Jesus. In the Epistle to the
Eomans, Paul shows that the Law failed to justify ;
and that faith in the blood of Jesus must be the ground
of justification. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the
same result follows from an argument rather different :
all that the Jewish system aimed to do is accomplished
in Christ in a far more perfect manner. The Gospel
has a better Priest, more effectual sacrifices, a more
profound peace. In the one Epistle the Law seems set
aside wholly for the system of faith ; in the other the
Law is exalted and glorified in its Gospel shape. But

* Titus ii. 14. Still stronger in 1 Tim. ii. G, " ransom instead of" (avri-
KvTpov). Also Eph. i. 7 (cbroAirrp&Nm) ; 1 Cor. v. 20, vii. 23.
t Rom. v. 10; 2 Cor. v. 18-20; Eph. ii. 1G; Col. i. 21.
X Rom. i. 18, v. 9 ; 1 Thes. i. 10.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 339

the aim is precisely the same, to show the weakness of
the Law and the effectual fruit of the Gospel.

12. We are now in a position to see how far the
teaching of the New Testament on the effects of the
death of Jesus is continuous and consistent. Are the
declarations of our Lord about Himself the same as
those of James and Peter, John and Paul ? and are
those of the Apostles consistent with each other ? The
several points of this mysterious transaction may be
thus roughly described : —

1. God sent His Son into the world to redeem lost
and ruined man from sin and death, and the Son will-
ingly took upon Him the form of a servant for this
purpose ; and thus the Father and the Son manifested
their love for us.

2. God the Father laid upon His Son the weight
of the sins of the whole world, so that He bare in His
own body the wrath which men must else have borne,
because there was no other way of escape for them ;
and thus the Atonement was a manifestation of Divine
justice.

3. The effect of the Atonement thus wrought is, that
man is placed in a new position, freed from the domin-
ion of sin, and able to follow holiness ; and thus the
doctrine of the Atonement ought to work in all the
hearers a sense of love, of obedience, and of self-sac-
rifice.

In shorter words, the sacrifice of the death of Christ
is a proof of Divine love and of Divine justice, and is
for us a document of obedience.

Of the four great writers of the New Testament,
Peter, Paul, and John set forth every one of these
points. Peter, the " witness of the sufferings of Christ,"
tells us that wo are redeemed with the blood of Jesus,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot ; says
that Christ bare our sins in His o'wn body on the tree.
If we " have tasted that the Lord is gracious,"* we
must not rest satisfied with a contemplation of our re-
deemed state, but must live a life worthy of it. No
* 1 Pet, ii. 3.

390

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VIII.

one can well doubt, who reads the two Epistles, that
the love of God and Christ, and the justice of God, and
the duties thereby laid on us, all have their value in
them ; but the love is less dwelt on than the justice,
whilst the most prominent idea of all is the moral and
practical working of the Cross of Christ upon the lives
of men.

With St. John, again, all three points find place.
That Jesus willingly laid down His life for us, and is
an advocate with the Father ; that He is also the pro-
pitiation, the suffering sacrifice for our sins ; and that
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin, for
that whoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; all are
put forward. The death of Christ is both justice and
love, both a propitiation and an act of loving self-sur-
render ; but the moral effect upon us is more promi-
nent even than these.

In the Epistles of Paul the three elements are all
present. In such expressions as a ransom, a propitia-
tion, who was " made sin for us," the wrath of God
against sin, and the mode in which it was turned away,
are presented to us. Yet not wrath alone. " The love
of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge, that
if one died for all, then were all dead : and that He
died for all, that, they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them,
and rose again."* Love in Him begets love in us, and
in our reconciled state the holiness which we could not
practise before becomes easy.

The reasons for not finding from St. James similar
evidence, we have spoken of already.

Now in which of these points is there the semblance
of contradiction between the Apostles and their Master ?
In none of them. In the Gospels, as in the Epistles,
Jesus is held up as the sacrifice and victim, quaffing a
cup from which His human nature shrank, feeling in
Him a sense of desolation such as we fail utterly to
comprehend on a theory of human motives. Yet no
one takes from Him His precious redeeming life ; He

* 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

Essay VIII.] THE DEA.TII OF CHRIST. 39 ^

lays it down of Himself, out of His great love for men.
But men are to deny themselves, and take up their
cross and tread in His steps. They are His friends only
if they keep His commands and follow His footsteps.

II. We must consider it proved that these three
points or moments are the doctrine of the whole New
Testament. What is there about this teaching that
has provoked in times past and present so much dispu-
tation ? Not, I am persuaded, the hardness of the doc-
trine,— for none of the theories put in its place are any
easier, — but its want of logical completeness. Sketched
out for us in a few broad lines, it tempts the fancy to
nil it in and lend it colour ; and we do not always re-
member that the hands that attempt this are trying to
make a mystery into a theory, an infinite truth into a
finite one, and to reduce the great things of God into
the narrow limits of our little field of view. To whom
was the ransom paid ? What was Satan's share of the
transaction ? How can one suffer for another ? How
could the Redeemer be miserable when He was con-
scious that His work was one which could bring happi-
ness to the whole human race % Yet this condition of
indefiniteness is one which is imposed on us in the re-
ception of every mystery : prayer, the incarnation, the
immortality of the soul, are all subjects that pass far
beyond our range of thought. And here we see the
wisdom of God in connecting so closely our redemp-
tion with our reformation. If the object were to give
us a complete theory of salvation, no donbt there would
be in the Bible much to seek. The theory is gathered
by fragments out of many an exhortation and warning ;
nowhere does it stand out entire, and without logical
flaw. But if we assume that the New Testament is
written for the guidance of sinful hearts, we find a
wonderful aptness for that particular end. Jesus is
proclaimed as the solace of our fears, as the founder
of our moral life, as the restorer of our lost relation
with our Father. If He had a cross, there is a cross
for us ; if He pleased not Himself, let us deny our-

392 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

selves ; if lie suffered for sin, let us hate sin.* And
the question ought not to be, What do all these mys-
teries mean? but, Are these thoughts really such as
will serve to guide our life and to assuage our terrors
in the hour of death ? The answer is twofold — one
from history and one from experience. The preaching
of the Cross of the Lord even in this simple fashion
converted the world. The same doctrine is now the
ground of any definite hope that we find in ourselves,
of forgiveness of sins and of everlasting life.

Now, in examining the history of the Doctrine we
shall expect to find, as in the case of other doctrines,
that attempts have been made to force from Scripture
a clearer and more definite statement than is found
there at first sight. We should also expect that these
attempts at greater precision had been accompanied
often, if not always, with the loss of some element on
which the Bible insists.

But we are told at the outset that the position
which this doctrine holds in the history of early con-
troversies is far from being so prominent as that which
we assign it now. The answer is, that in the first ages
the disputes which prevailed about the Person of Jesus
superseded the discussion of the Atonement, because
they contained and implied it. More than once, when
the ostensible argument was the nature of the Re-
deemer, Athanasius insisted that if the Son of God had
been such a one as Arians and Sabellians dreamed of,
He could not have redeemed the world. How could
a man who was only one among other men have power
to redeem them all? It needed the Son of God, who
had power over all men, to redeem them.f And

* Pages might be filled with examples of this, and yet Mr. Garden
('Tracts" for Priests and People,' iii. p. 4) starts back from one of them as
Crusoe did from the footprint in the sand. "In 1 Pet. i. 18, we have an im-
pressive sentence, which we read on in our habitual key of thought, but are
surprised to find that it does not end on the key-note : — ' Forasmuch as ye
know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,
from [it is here that modern ears and thoughts will anticipate a different end-
ing] your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.' " This
is the usual key-note of Scripture, but not the only note. The same Epistle
speaks of redemption from wrath and eternal death (1 Pet. i. 5, ii. 10, iv.
17, 18).

t Cont. Arian. i. § 49. Comp. i. §§ 19, 37, ii. § 14, 20.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 333

Arians, conscious of this, rested the redemption of men,
not on any power inherent in the Saviour s nature, bnt
on the simple declaration of God that the cnrse was
removed.* Cyril objects to Nestorius that his doctrine
makes the Atonement meaningless, for it refers it, not
to one who is God and man, but to a man, whose rela-
tion to God the Word is only external.f When the
whole doctrine of the Person of Christ was the subject
of searching controversy, the ' doctrine of Atonement
did not emerge as the subject of a separate dispute ;
but we may be sure that it was never far off. And
it may be that this is the clue to our present discus-
sions about the Atonement. As of old it was involved
in another controversy, so now the subject of that other
controversy is involved in this ; and when we are in-
vited to discuss whether one man can ever bear the
sins of another, and whether vicarious punishment
could ever be agreeable to God's justice, we cannot
but notice that the divine nature of Christ is never
strongly asserted on that side, or assumed as an ele-
ment in the argument. The death of Jesus is dis-
cussed as the death of a mere man. The most incau-
tious rhetorical flights of orthodox sermons are selected
for assault, in which a substitution of the innocent for
the guilty is spoken of under the forms and phrases of
human law, in the very points where human law is not
applicable ; and the more deliberate expositions of faith
are put on one side. We are accused of making that
the corner-stone of the Christian faith which no creed
fully defines. The necessity of our position compels
us to make the Atonement prominent. But all the
faith is involved in the discussion. When the views
of Socinus on the Atonement are brought forth again,
his notions as to the Redeemer's person are probably
not far off.

In modernwriters who have touched the subject, an
undue prominence is given to one feature of the patristic
teaching, the notion that the ransom paid by our Lord
Was paid to the Devil, into whose power man had

* Cont. Arian. ii. § G8. X Adv. Nestorius, in. 2.

1 r*

394 Alm T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

passed through Bin.* Thus what is for the most part
rhetorical playing with words, is put forward as if it
were the sole and the serious belief of these writers.
The story bears a very different telling. There is not
space for it here ; but a few quotations may be useful.
The old Epistle to Diognetus f tells how God gave His
Son a ransom for us; and we are to rejoice that the
Holy One died for the evil-doers, the sinless for the
sinful ; for what was there, short of His righteousness,
that would cover our sins ? Clement of Borne ^ sees
the truth not less clearly. According to Ignatius, § we
owe our salvation to Christ crucified for us in the flesh,
and to His "God-blessed passion." To the Jewish
objection that the cross is accursed, and therefore un-
worthy of Messiah, Justin Martyr retorts that this is
matter for those to be ashamed of who inflicted the
death, when the Father of all had "willed that His
Christ should take the curses of all for the whole race
of man, knowing that He would raise Him up after He
had been crucified and put to death." || By Irenseus
the Scriptural accounts of the Redemption are promi-
nently put forward. As a man caused the fall, a man
must cause the restoration ; he must be a man able to
sum up (reeapitulare) all the human species in himself,
so as to bear the punishment of all, and to render an
obedience that will compensate for their innumerable
acts of disobedience. It suits not with the Divine nature
to effect His will by force, but rather by love and influ-
ence ; hence came the voluntary self-sacrifice, out of
exceeding love, of the divine Son of Man, who is truly
God and man ; and hence too men are not dragged, but
drawn back to God from sin, embracing by an act of
their will the offers of mercy made them through Christ.
But, combined with these statements, there are indica-
tions at least of the idea that Christ died to redeem men
from a real objective power which Satan'had acquired
over them, so that the redeeming price was paid, not so

* Professor Jowett, ii. 572. Mr. Gardner (p. 4) devotes seventeen lines
to the subject of the Fathers, and this theory occupies the whole of them; as
if there were no other opinions worth mentioning.

t Ch. ix. % Ch. 1. § Ad Smyrn. ch. i. 1 Dial. Tryph.,§ 95.

Essay VIIL] THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 395

much by way of debt clue to the righteousness and jus-
tice of God, as by way of ransom to release them from
a conqueror, and to restore them to God, to whom they
originally belonged. " Since," says he, " the apostasy
[the Devil] unjustly got the dominion over us, and,
though we belonged by nature to the omnipotent God,
alienated us against nature and made us his own disci-
ples, the Word of God [Christ], powerful in all things
and perfect in justice, acted justly in regard _ to the
apostasy [the Devil], redeeming from it that which was
His own ; not by force, in the way that it got dominion
over us in the beginning, when it carried off insatiably
that which belonged not to it, but by persuasion (secun-
dum suadelam), as it became God to receive what He
would, by the use of persuasion, not of force, that justice
should not be infringed, nor yet that which God created
of old should perish"" * Some have supposed that the
words " by persuasion " mean by a way which the Devil
himself must be convinced was right and reasonable,
but this would be strangely inconsistent with the general
views of the writer, the apostate spirit, as he says in
another place, persuaded men to transgress, but he used
fraud and wrong to compass his purpose; and here
Irenseus contrasts with this false persuasion, which he
calls force and injustice, the fair and just persuasion by
which the Son of Man, who has been lifted up, draws
all men back to Him. The persuasion is addressed to
lost men, and not to Satan. With Irenseus the redemp-
tion was not a friendly treaty between two powers for
the release of prisoners ; he says that Christ contended
with, repulsed, conquered, despoiled, and bound the
enemy of God and man. The point on which he lays
most stress is certainly not the power which Satan has
acquired, but the power that belongs inherently to our
Redeemer of summing up in Himself the interests of
the whole human race. He sees that to offer a sacrifice
for all mankind is a privilege that can belong only to
man on one side, for man's fault is in question ; only to
the Divine Son of God on the other, for only He can

* Adv. Hser. v. i. 1.

39G AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

control the destinies of all men. If the " persuasion "
has been rightly referred to mem, and not to Satan (and
Dorner seems to have clearly established it*), then
Irenseus goes very little beyond Holy Scripture in his
attempt to explain the mystery of the power of the Evil
One over us. In both we are to be redeemed from
Satan and from death, in both the offering of One whose
power over the human race is unlimited shall procure
deliverance. The doctrine of the Atonement is knit
up with that of the Incarnation ; and he does not ask
whether one man can suffer for another, but what man-
ner of person He must be whose sufferings can have
power over all others to save them.

The doctrine of Athanasius will furnish another
sample of patristic teaching. Man fell through sin,
says this great teacher ; and the righteousness of God
was thus brought into conflict with His goodness. Ac-
cording to His righteousness and truth, He who has
given the law must inflict the allotted punishment on
those who break it : but then His goodness could not
suffer that man, made in his own image, should perish
through the deceit of the Devil and his angels. It were
better he had not been created. How shall this contra-
diction be solved ? By man's repentance ? Simple re-
pentance would be insufficient on two grounds ; because
the Divine veracity, which had promised death, would
not have been satisfied, and because this would not free
man from the physical corruption (f) Kara fyvatv (f)0opd)
which he had incurred. The Word of God, the Son,
who created the world, can alone restore it. He is
above all, and can suffer and satisfy for all, and free all
from their natural corruption ; for He indeed created
them at first, and so can re-create. In order to this
restoration, He, the incorporeal and incorruptible Word,
made for Himself a temple, a house, in a human form
and flesh. Now and then the expressions of Athanasius
savour of Apollinarian views, as though Christ were
the nature of God in the form of man, the human mind

* 'Person Christi,' vol. i., p. 479, note against Baur, ' VcrsGhnung,' p. So;
compare notes in Thomson's ' JBampton Lectures,' p. 2S7.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

397

being left out of the account; but in other places no
one has more strongly expressed himself against this
very error, and his comment on the words' " Let this
cup pass from me," and on " The spirit is willing, but
the flesh is weak," is that they reveal two wills in man
— the human, that is of the flesh, and the Divine, which
is from God. The analogy between the creation and
the restoration of man is closely pursued by Athanasius.
He describes the redemption more as a mere renewal
than as a development and completion of the creation
of man ; and here lies the peculiarity of his system.
The curse of death is taken away ; but more than this,
the Word becomes, through the Holy Ghost, a living
principle diffused through the hearts of men, freeing
them from the power of sin, and enduing them with
immortality. What part the death of the Lord bears
in our restoration will appear from such expressions as
these. His death is " a sacrifice offered on behalf of
all and instead of all ; " * and it reconciles us to the
Father,f for in it Jesus took on Him the punishments
to which we were liable, and, by suffering in His own
body our punishment, conferred salvation on us. J His
death paid a debt, § and was a ransom for us. || As our
High-Priest He brought Himself as an offering to the
Father, to purge us from our sins by His ownlblood.T
The power of this sacrifice to reconcile for the whole
human species arose from the position in which Jesus
stands to us all ; He is the Creator, and again He is the
Euler of all the world and of mankind, and so nothing
that He does but must influence all. When a king
comes into a great city, and takes up his dwelling in a
single house of it, the honour of the visit is reflected on
all the city; enemies and robbers desist from their
work, and, through the presence in one house, the whole
city is protected. So it is with the presence of our
King.** Who can fail to see in this system all the
Scriptural elements of the Atonement faithfully pre-

* De Incar. 20. t De Deer. 14.

% Cont. Ar. i. GO. § Cont. Ar. ii. 66.

1 Cont. Apol. ii. 12. 1[ Cont. Ar. ii. 7.
** De Incar. ix.

398 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay Till.

served ? More than this might be proved if space and
time allowed : the anxious recurrence to Holy Writ as
the rule of faith, the correction by the light of Scripture
of statements that run perilously close to error. In the
Fathers the various representations of the work of the
Lord, — the ransom, the sacrifice, the conflict with Satan,
— all have reference to His death. We have seen this
in Athanasius. Tertullian uses the phrase that Christ
is " the universal Priest of God," * in reference to His
offering of Himself for men. No doubt the theories
on this subject were indefinite and incomplete; but a
greater mistake could not be made than to suppose that
the doctrine of satisfaction and substitution was absent
from the patristic writings, and lay dormant till the
voice of Anselm woke it. Origen, who is often said to
know nothing of the substitutive sufferings of the Lord,
asserts them expressly in several passages.f Cyril of
Jerusalem not less so: — "We were enemies of God
through sin, and God had appointed the sinner to die.
One of two things therefore must needs have happened,
— that God keeping His word should destroy all men,
or that in His loving kindness He should cancel the
sentence. But behold the wisdom of God ; He pre-
served both the truth of His sentence and the exercise
of His loving kindness. Christ took our sins in His
own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should
live to righteousness.":}: So Cyril of Alexandria: —
" Since they who were the servants of sin were made
subject to the punishment of sin, He who was free from
sin, and had trod the paths of all righteousness, under-
went the punishment of sinners, destroying by His
Cross the sentence of the old curse . . . ' being made a
curse for us.' " § The same doctrine is found in Augus-
tine, Hilary of Poitiers, and Ambrose. None of these
writers worked out into a system the doctrine of the

* Cont. Marc. iv. 9.

t Cont. Cels. ii. 23, and vol. xviii. 14, Explan. in Epist. ad Rom. iii. 8.
Compare Mohler, Symbolik. p. 247.

X Catech. xiii. 33.

§ De Incarnatione, ch. xxv. in Mai's Patrum Bibliotlicca. It is doubtful
whether this work is Cyril's, but it is of about the same date, and other pas-
sages as express are quoted from Cyril's acknowledged works.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHPwIST. 3gg

substitutive sacrifice of Christ ; but it is absurd to pre-
tend, with these passages before us, that Anselm was
the inventor of the doctrine, and the destroyer of another
which is supposed to have usurped dominion over the
minds of all the Fathers. It is something more than
absurd when words are put into the mouth of Gregory
JSTazianzen which he never spoke, to the effect "that
there is no danger in errors about the mode of our
redemption. *

* By what means a weak cause may be supported will appear from the
history of a spurious quotation. Mr. Garden, in his tract already quoted,
says : " In the strong language of Gregory Nazianzen, we may affirm that
6 the mode in which Christ has redeemed us is a matter in which we may err
without danger.'" If Gregory the Theologian had made such an assertion,
no doubt the language would have been as strong as it was startling. But
he never did. Mr. Garden follows Professor Jowett-, who says : " Gregory
of [sic] Nazianzen numbers speculations about the sufferings of Christ among
those things on which it is useful to have correct ideas, but not dangerous to
be mistaken." Professor Jowett has followed F. C. Baur, who, however,
quotes the whole passage, and not a fragment of a sentence, and admits that
it is not in harmony with the rest of Gregory's views. The passage in
question comes from the first of the ' Theological Orations' of Gregory (Orat.
xxvii. [xxxiii.]), in which he is inveighing against the Eunomians for the
length to which they carry their speculations on the nature and counsels of
God. He suggests other subjects of discussion from profane philosophy, in
which they may show off their skill and eloquence without wronging God by
irreverence. He then says : " But if you think these things unworthy of
discussion, as trifling things that have been often refuted, and desire to em-
ploy yourself on your own subjects, and seek the distinction that may arise
from these, I will afford you even here a wide field. Philosophize about the
world or worlds, about matter, the soul, about reasonable creatures higher
and lower, about resurrection, judgment, retribution, the sufferings of Christ ;
for in these things to attain our object is not useless, and to fail of it is free
from peril (rb iTrirvyxdueiv ovk &xPrl(jrov Ka^ ™ diaf.iapro.ueiv attivSvvov).''''
Here there is not a word about " the mode in which Christ has redeemed
us ; " the nature of our Lord's sufferings is what they are allowed to discuss,
and not the consequences of those sufferings, of which no hint is given. As
well say that the passage tells us it is safe to err on the side of materialism,
because matter is mentioned ; or safe to deny the soul's immortality, because
the soul is mentioned. There are questions, physical and metaphysical,
about all these things, which admit of discussion, and yet need not trench on
vital Christian truth. The origin and duration of the world, the nature of
matter, the soul's connexion with the body, the nature of reason, the state of
the body in the resurrection, the nature of future rewards and punishments,
the sufferings of the Lord, how far physical and how far mental, are all ques-
tions of this sort. It is not even clear that the word Siafiaprdpeiu means " to
err from the truth ; " it may be, as Leunclavius renders it, " to fail of your
object," and the object in this case is success in disputation. But on this I
do not insist. We have here the solitary patristic quotation by which lax
views about the Atonement are supposed to be encouraged ; and Mr. Jowett
prints part of the sentence, when the whole would have at once disarmed
his argument, whilst Mr. Garden puts words into the mouth of this Father
which he never used, which he could not and would not have used. We are
thankful for the admission that this is the best that can be done on that side

400 AIDS T0 FAITH. [EssatVIII.

7. But it is time to pass to Anselm, the reputed
parent of our modern teaching ; and we ought to be
thoroughly satisfied upon the question whether he has
or has not supplanted the Bible in our pulpits and
treatises, and in our thoughts. The Cur Deus Homo,
of this great and truly humble writer, is an attempt to
answer the question, Why was it requisite for man's
salvation that God should become man? Considering
the Divine omnipotence, wTe might expect that the
mere fiat of His will or the acceptance of some lower
sacrifice than that of the only begotten Son of God
might have sufficed to effect the reconciliation. The
incidents of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion seem
derogatory to God ; the Infinite Spirit clothing Him-
self with a finite nature, and allowing finite men and
the power of evil to assail and triumph over Him,
these are representations that may shock our rever-
ence. If redemption was required at all, why was it
not effected by means of a sinless man who was no
more than man ? A mere man caused the fall, a mere
man might have sufficed for the restoration. Anselm
replies that this would not have procured man's per-
fect restoration, for it would have left men dependent
on one of themselves ; he to whom they owed re-
demption would have been in some sense their mas-
ter instead of God. But why, it may be urged, was
there any need of redemption at all? When we speak
of God's anger, we mean neither more nor less than
His will to punish. The moment that will is with-
drawn, there is neither anger nor punishment to fear ;
and so it might appear that a mere revocation of the
will to punish would of itself constitute salvation.
The argument that God gave His Son as a ransom for
man from the power of Satan, because it was right

of the argument. Let us put a true quotation from Gregory in the place of
the sham one : "... the very sufferings of Christ by which all of us, without
exception, were restored (av^irKaaQr^v) who partake of the nature of the
same Adam, and were deceived by the serpent and brought into the death
of sin, and were saved again by the heavenly Adam, and were brought back
to the tree of life whence we had fallen, by means of the tree of ignominy"
(Orat. xxxiii. p. 609, ed. Paris, 1840). This is one among many statements
as to " the mode in which Christ redeemed us."

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 401

and just to recover by fair means a race who had freely
and voluntarily given themselves over to his power, is
at once dismissed : for the true reasons, namely, that
the Devil cannot properly have either merit or power
or right over man ; that the power which in one sense
he exerts against mankind was only permissive, and
that it expired when the permission was withdrawn.
He then proceeds to establish the need of redemption
on purer grounds. Every creature that can will and
act owes to God an entire obedience, as the honour due
to Him. All sin, then, is a wrong done to His honour, of
what kind soever the offence is. Punishment must
attach to sin invariably, in order to mark the difference
between sin and holiness ; it would not only encourage
sin, if men thought that the Almighty were blind to it,
but would obscure and distort our views of the Divine
nature itself, if we conceived of Him as one to whom
sin and its opposite are both alike. We should thus
regard God as admitting sin into the order of the
universe without dissent or protest, whereas we know
that the very nature of sin is disorder. God, however,
cannot suffer disorder ; for though sin could not really
detract from His power and dignity, its aim and in-
tent are to dishonour and deface, as far as may be, the
beauty of the Divine government. If it may do this
and yet draw at pleasure on the Divine but free forgive-
ness, unrighteousness is more free and unshackled
than obedience. "Now no man can render for his
brethren the full obedience required : " a sinner cannot
justify a sinner." Even if a man with his heart full of
love and contrition were to renounce all earthly
solaces, and in labour and abstinence to strive to obey
God in all things, and to do good to all and forgive all,
he would only be doing his duty. But he is unable to
do even this ; and it is his misery that he cannot plead
his inability as an excuse, because that proceeds from
sin. He must be of the same nature as those for
whom he renders the obedience, in order that it may
be accepted as theirs ; and yet if the satisfaction is to
be complete, he must be able to render to God some-

402 AIDS T0 FAITH. TEssay VIII.

thing greater than every created thing, for among men
pure righteousness is not to be found ; and if so, he
must be God, for what is there above the creature but
God Himself? Therefore he must be God and man,
whose life far exalted above all created things must be
infinitely valuable. As to the manner of this redemp-
tion, Anselm uses these words, which bear on a con-
troverted point in his theory: — "If man sinned for
pleasure, is it not consistent that he should make satisfac-
tion by hardness ? And if he were most easily over-
come by the Devil, so as to dishonour God by sin, is
it not just that man, making satisfaction to God for
sin, should conquer the Devil, for the honour of God,
in the most difficult manner?" If he departed from
God completely by sin, the mode of making satisfac-
tion should be by a complete devotion to God. Now
man can undergo nothing harder or more difficult, for
the honour of God, than death ; nor can he devote
himself to God more completely than when he delivers
himself to death for His honour.* But Anselm insists
more on the life of obedience which was acted out
by Jesus, and which no other could have rendered, as
the satisfaction which was rendered to God. He made
atonement for men, by rendering through life a per-
fect obedience, in lieu of theirs, and by a death which,
as sinless, He did not owe, and as God He might have
escaped. Thus is the Divine mercy, which seems to
be excluded when we think of the Divine justice and
of the infinite amount of sin, brought into perfect
harmony with justice, so that the reason can discern
that no better scheme of redemption could have been
devised.

8. This is a rough sketch of the system to which,
as we are often told, modern theology is indebted for
the theory of satisfaction which it teaches. "We are

* II. 11. I find in this passage the doctrine of vicarious retribution,
which Baur fails to find in the Cur Deus Homo. Mr. Garden (p. 5), in de-
ciding between us on this point, thinks it enough to quote a passage in the
next chapter (II. 12) which is supposed to preclude the doctrine. The pas-
sage, however, seems to me wholly irrelevant, referring merely to the ques-
tion whether what one does willingly can be the cause of misery.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CUEIST. 4Q3

supposed by many to owe the doctrine of the Cross to
a pious Christian writer, as late as the eleventh century.
Let us sift the claim.

The foundation of Anselm's theory is found in
Athanasius. Both these writers view the Atonement
habitually as a transaction before the bar of Divine
justice in heaven ; both seek the explanation of its
possibility in the divine nature of him who atones ;
both conceive it as the payment of a debt due to God.
It would have been equally hard for both to admit the
force of the modern objection that it is not lawful for
one man to be punished for another; for while the
perfect human nature of the Lord was essential to
complete the Atonement, the human nature is dwelt in
by the divine, and. the will that chooses to suffer for
man is divine. With both these writers the great mo-
ment of the Atonement is found in the Incarnation ;
in the presence in human flesh of one able to act for
men. What we owe to Anselm is not so much the
general plan of salvation as the minute and careful
delineation of it. Nowhere else is there such logical
precision, such a continuous chain of deduction. This
is the kind of originality which we ought to attribute
to him.

9. Anselm has indeed introduced a word, which
has ever since been associated with the dogma of the
Atonement — the word satisfaction. But a new word
is not necessarily an innovation in thought. The
legal sense of the word satisfaction is the appeasing a
creditor on the subject of his debt, not necessarily by
the payment of it (solutio), but by any means that he
will accept. It is used more than once by Tertullian,
but not in the sense of vicarious satisfaction ; in that
sense no doubt it owes its currency to Anselm. It has
gone far to replace the word sacrifice. But the funda-
mental ideas of the two words are not so far apart as
is often assumed. Sacrifice, in the usage of the Bible,
is the appointed rite by which a Jewish citizen, who
has broken the law and forfeited thereby his position
within the pale of the Covenant, is enabled to procure

404 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

his restoration. It is a Jewish word, and belongs to
the positive provisions of the Jewish polity, and not to
general ethics. Still, as the Jewish constitution re-
flected the general dealings of God with all the world,
the term sacrifice applies to the restoration of all men
who have strayed from God by their sins. With
thankful hearts we may look up to Christ as the lamb
of our paschal sacrifice ; since by His death and resur-
rection, and without any merit or effort of our own,
we are restored to the place before God which we had
lost. The word satisfaction, on the other hand, implies
a debt wThich wTe have not the means of paying, a debt
of punishment in consequence of our sins, or of obe-
dience to compensate former disobedience. Both
terms imply a restoration through something which is
not us nor ours. Whether we speak of it as a sacrifice
or a payment, the same thought may be present to our
minds ; a reconcilement of God and us, wrought not
by us but by our Redeemer. It is a gain to us, as
sacrificial usages become forgotten, to acquire a term
which expresses the same idea appealing to the prin-
ciples of general ethics. But facts, and not words, are
the subject of revelation ; what wre believe is that the
death of the Redeemer purchased our life, our recon-
ciliation, that without His obedience our sins would
have borne their natural fruit of death. And whether
we call this act a sacrifice, on account of its being an
offering to appease the Divine wrath, or a satisfaction,
as it is a mode of payment which God accepts instead
of the debt of obedience that we cannot render, is of
less importance than might at first appear. So long as
we believe that the wrath of God because of our diso-
bedience fell in the shape of affliction on Him who
alone had so acted as to please God, the terms in which
it may be expressed may be suffered to vary.

10. The system of Anselm is indeed open to criti-
cism, but not for the introduction of the word sacrifice.
So far is it from being an undue development of Holy
Writ, that it falls far short of it in the completeness of
its statements. As the Atonement transcends all our

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CUEIST. 4q5

means of exposition, it must needs be that, the more
exactly it is fitted to any analogous human affairs, the
more entirely will some of its complex elements be
omitted from the description. Hence, for example,
there is the danger lest the Atonement degenerate into
a transaction between a righteous Father on the one
side, and a loving Saviour on the other, because in the
human transaction from which the analogy is drawn
two distinct parties are concerned ; whereas in the
plan of salvation one will operates, and in the Father
and the Son alike justice and love are reconciled.
Again, the reconciliation effected by Christ appears
rather as a bringing God into harmony with Himself,
His mercy with His justice, than as a reconciliation of
man with God. The passages of Scripture that speak
of the wrath of God against man are not explicable of
Anselm's system. The exclamation of the Baptist,
that Jesus is the Lamb of God, that taketh away the
sin of the world ; the prophecy of His sufferings by
Isaiah (ch. liii.) ; the words of Peter that He " his own
self bare our sins in his own body on the tree ;"* and
passages of like import in St. Paul's writings,-)- can
only find place with Anselm by a very forced interpre-
tation. His scheme is mainly this, that the merit of
the perfect obedience of Jesus was so great as to de-
serve a great reward, and that in answer to the prayer
of the Lord this reward was given in the form of the
salvation of His brethren. But Christ does not appear
in this system as groaning and suffering under the
curse of the world, as He does in Holy Scripture.
Until the time of Anselm the doctrine of the Atone-
ment had within certain limits fluctuated with the
change of teachers ; the doctrine itself was one and
the same, but this or that aspect of it had been made
prominent. Anselm aimed at fixing in one system the
scattered truths ; and the result has been that he, like
his predecessors, made some parts of the truth conspic-
uous to the prejudice of the rest.

11. Looking fairly at the whole period from Igna-

* 1 Pet. ii. 24. t Gal. iii. 13. 2 Cor. v. 21.

4Q6 AIDS TO FAITH. IEssay VIIL

tius to Anselm, we are obliged to own that the efficacy
of the death of the Lord was always believed, and that
of the three parts or moments of this doctrine, the love,
and the justice, and the practical obedience, not one
fell to the ground. The theory of a victory over Satan,
gained by deceit, shrinks into its proper proportions ;
ft is an excrescence on the truth, and not a leprosy
turning all the truth into corruption.

III. 1. Holy Scripture contains the doctrine, and the
Church has always taught it. Whence, then, the re-
pugnance to it which some persons of serious and de-
vout minds have expressed ? The objections for the
most part take the form of a denial that it is possible
that one man should suffer for the sin of another ; that
the wrath of God could be appeased by the sacrifice of
one who had done no sin in the place of the sinful. A
thorough-going sense of man's responsibility for his own
acts, and a reluctance to own that the sufferings of the
just can ever be the consequence of the sins of others,
are the two principal motives at work. How can these
be most easily dealt with ?

2. All the difficulties that belong to this question
are introduced prior to it by a consideration of sin it-
self. The conscience of man admits that there is such
a thing as guilt ; and so strong, decided, and constant
is its witness, that there is no fear that mankind in the
long run will attempt to explain away the fact that sin.
exists. But when I am asked to believe that it is
against the Divine plan that any other being should
take away from me any of the consequences of my
guilt, I think myself entitled to say that it is the cor-
relative of this proposition that no one should have
brought upon me any of the guilt and its consequences.
It is surely not more repugnant to God's justice that
another should bear my guilt than that I should be
guilty because of another; nay, Divine justice will be
more readily reconciled with a plan in which One who
is entirely willing to bear my sin should take off its in-
tolerable burden from me who am earnestly desirous
to get rid of it. than with a plan in which sinfulness

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 4q7

devolves from one who did not mean his own faults to
do me harm, upon me who by no means wished to in-
herit them. But this kind of devolution, or transmis-
sion, is a fact of constant occurrence of which no man
can be ignorant. We open the works of writers like
Broussais and Buchner, and find such importance given
to the influence on moral habits of hereditary transmis-
sion, of age, sex, maladies, mode of living, and climate,
that the doctrine of individual responsibility seems for
the moment to be in peril. We need to retire within,
and take counsel of conscience, in order to resist the
invitation to believe " that what we call free-will is
nothing but our being conscious of a will, without be-
ing conscious of the antecedents that determine its
mode of action," which, translated into plainer non-
sense, would mean — being conscious of our will with-
out being conscious that we did not possess one. But
all are agreed that outward circumstances and inward
constitution derived from parents and ancestors by
physical laws, have a great influence upon the charac-
ter of men. In extreme cases this may be true to the
extent of paralysing the will altogether. If a young
man has sprung from parents of intemperate habits,
who lived by stealing, and has been brought up among
companions of the same sort, we shall hardly look to
find him any better than the soil in which he grew ;
and any efforts to amend him and call forth his moral
nature would be preceded by the effort to transplant
him. Alike in the good and evil qualities of men the
effect of hereditary transmission comes under daily
notice. And since we are always invited in this ques-
tion to discuss it in forensic language, and are told that
no man can be allowed before a human tribunal to
take upon himself the position of the criminal and
suffer the punishment of another, because every one
arraigned there must bear his own burden, we must
remark that,, if every one did actually bear his own
burden there, human justice would have attained a
perfection which it has never yet boasted. In gradu-
ated punishments for the same offence there is a rough

4Q3 AID9 T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

attempt to take into account the antecedents of the
criminal and the amount of his temptation ; but these
palliations are not proved in evidence, and it is by a
rough guess only that an equitable apportionment of
punishment is attempted. In defining the line at
which mental imbecility extinguishes all sense of re-
sponsibility laws have utterly failed, and tribunals
have stultified themselves by conflicting decisions.
But the arguments on these cases prove that all be-
lieve in a class of minds where guilt is just imputable
and no more, — where the mental debility, often con-
genital, all but extinguishes the moral offence. In
cases of such nice difficulty, mistakes must be made ;
punishment must fall on the wrong man. In or is this
mere speculation ; a man has been decided insane at
one place for a crime for which another man at another
place has been hanged, according as the judge and jury
made prominent in their minds the safety of. society or
consideration for the supposed criminal. Capital pun-
ishment has fallen upon men who, upon the same facts
before a different tribunal, would have been judged to
have exercised no choice at all, but to have acted out
the course to which birth and disease and the like
compelled them. Absolute compulsion of this kind is
no doubt rare ; but absolute freedom is more than rare,
it is impossible. Men enter this world the heirs of pas-
sions, perhaps cultivated in the last generation to an
unnatural height ; they are nurtured on bad examples
and a low morality, so that they cannot do the things
that they would. And it is the rule, and not the ex-
ception, that men's moral actions are tinctured with
the colour of the actions of others before and around
them, which they could not possibly have caused.
Now, if these facts are admitted,— if, instead of that
perfect isolation of responsibility which some insist on,
a joint responsibility is the universal rule,— with what
show of reason can they pretend that it is on thisground
that the Christian scheme is untenable ? Look into the
black London alleys teeming with ignorance, improvi-
dence, and vice ; do you not see written in those faces

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CUEIST. 409

eloquent in wretchedness, " We did not place ourselves
here : were the choice given us freely, we would not be
as we are " ? Then what do we think of the consisten-
cy of those who see guilt brought on by others, but
think it revolting that another should take it off? Liv-
ing comments upon the words "In Adam all die"
abound, and cannot be blotted out: it ought not then
to revolt our moral sense that those other words are
added, "In Christ shall all be made alive." The latter
words, in fact, go far to solve the mystery of the former.
For the constant transmission of sinfulness, the heritage
of sins bequeathed from the fathers to their children, is
revolting to the moral sense when severed from the
thought of a Deliverer. The message of Heaven to us
is, " Ye are all of one family, partakers of the family
heritage of sin, and wretchedness, and ruin ; and yet
every one of you driven by the- stimulus of conscience
to protest against the ruin, and to erect yourselves
above it. Ye are accustomed to this derived destruc-
tion, this hereditary partnership in guilt ; lift your eyes
one step further back, to that common Father from
whom ye sprung, from whom ye have lived in separa-
tion. By taking your nature I will re-establish that
lost connection,"! will make the Father's lost favour
accessible to you again. I will undo the curse, by
placing myself under it. I will sanctify the flesh,
which the sin of generations has made unclean. For
I am partaker of "the Father's nature, and the power
over you which belongs to Him is mine also ; and I
am partaker of your nature in all save in the sin of it ;
and thus I am the Mediator between God and man."

3. There is then nothing new or startling in the rev-
elation of a great moral good bestowed on us without
our effort; it is in harmony with the system under
which we live, as members of a great family having
common interests even in things belonging to the soul.
But, beside the general fact, the mode of our redemp-
tion, mysterious as it must be, should still be in har-
mony with our mental constitution ; it should be such
as not to shock our natural expectation. We cannot
18

410 AII)3 TO FAITH. [Essay VIII.

possibly hope to understand it ; but it must riot be such
that we can understand it ought not to be. The ques-
tion— Why should Jesus have died for our sins instead
of simply declaring forgiveness ? Why was not He the
ambassador of forgiveness instead of the artificer of it? — ■
will obtrude even upon submissive minds. !Now the
death of Jesus, after such a life as His, was the crown-
ing act and achievement of sin ; and so showed to man
the extent of his own corruption. Here was one whose
every act went to deserve the titles of " the Holy One,
and the Just," whose love for His own people gushed
forth through the openings of a hundred miracles
wrought for their good : whose speech was meek, and
whose life could provoke no jealousy, nor threaten the
foundations of any lawful power; who had fed, or
healed, or taught many thousands of the people that
ought to have been ready witnesses in His behalf; whose
doctrines seldom failed to produce on the hearers a pro-
found impression in favour of a teacher different from
and far above all others ; yet whose goodness quickened
the hatred of those in authority, and was the direct
cause of reviling, persecution, and death. By how
much the example of the sinless Jesus is conspicuous,
by so much is the sin of His persecution and death in-
tensified. Had there been in the Lord (the supposition
must be pardoned) one trace of human folly or sin,
high-priest and Pharisee would have been more toler-
ant, because the contrast that rebuked them would have
been less violent. But that shining armour showed no
flaw nor stain. Their hatred was pure hatred of good-
ness ; their sentence of death was passed because there
was no crime ; the death itself was the first death that
was the wages of no sin. And so the Apostles, in
preaching the Gospel, wanted no better arguments for
condemning sin : that men had imbrued their hands in
the blood of One who was sinless and who loved them,
was enough to abase any candid spirit. As when some
man of doubtful repute becomes suddenly recognized as
the author of some enormous crime, and all his fellows
rofioJ.l from him,, and will not give him a cup of water

Essay VIII.] TIIE DEATH OF CUEIST. 41 1

lest they seem to countenance Lis evil deed, so, when
mankind saw that the blood of the sinless Jesus was red
on the hand of the rulers and the people, they were
pricked to the heart by the spectacle, and fled from a
haunt of guilt too horrible for them to live in longer.

" Men and brethren, what shall we do ? _ Save

yom

selves from this untoward generation."* In the

death of Jesus sin stood revealed to itself. In that deed
it first reached its full height ; it brought forth into act
all the potential consequences of ages of lust and malice.
The devil was a liar and a murderer from the beginning,
and men obeyed him in all falsehood and wrong. But
lie never showed wThat he was capable of till he mur-
dered the sinless Redeemer in the name of God. And
with that crowning act his power was scattered and
overthrown. We are almost tempted to recur to the
language of the Fathers, as to the delusion into which
Satan wTas betrayed. Satan as lightning fell from heav-
en, just as he stood upon the highest heap of ruin.
And out of the discord and the darkness of that hour,
the most terrible in human history, was heard a voice
proclaiming peace to man, just when Satan's foot was
planted most firmly on his neck.

4. " But," it is answered, " what we object to is the
use of such words as imply that Jesus fell under the
wrath of God and became a'curse for us. These cannot
be applied properly to our Lord ; but if at all, only in
a loose and figurative way." Now what are the tokens
of the curse under which man labours ?f It shows
itself in his social relations, in his relation to nature, and
in his relation to God.

The contrast between our aspirations after social
progress and the actual state of society marks strongly
the effect of sin and wrath upon it. Whilst we sigh
after a reign of industry and peace and love, the thun-
ders of a causeless and profitless war mutter again in
the air, and portend the loss of the fruits of fifty years
of progress to the devoted nations engaged in it. We

* Acts ii. 37, 40.

t See Gess, Lehre, v. d. ' VersuhnuDg.'

412

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VIII.

would befriend and raise the poor, but the necessities
of their position are a chain round them that seems to
make us and them helpless for good. For want of a
little more food and a little more room in their dwell-
ings, the sublimest truths fall dead upon their ears.
Every great step of social progress, however plainly
good and just, has had its battlefields or its scaffolds.
Doubt, and suffering, and selfishness abound. Com-
mercial speculations, founded in sheer fraud, collapse
and bury the trusting multitude in their ruins. Life
must be for most of our population a constant struggle
against starvation. The complaints against our present
social condition come not from Christian writers only,
but from social reformers of every degree and creed.*

The relations of man to nature are likewise " out of
joint," The high purposes that the soul is able to con-
ceive are thwarted by the body. Hereditary indolence,
or temper, or desire, stands across the path ; and men
despair when they me.asure their meagre performance
with their high promise, and find too often the evil habit
growing on them and checking their pace, as the chee-
tah pulls down the running deer. And the bodily or-
ganism, crippled at the outset with the faults perhaps
of a former generation, breaks down prematurely ; and
"the night when no man can work" overtakes the pil-
grim when morn has scarcely passed.

But the third effect of the curse is worse than these ;
the relation between God and man is broken by sin.
" Sin is a great ditch and wall, dividing us from God."f
The law of God is lost, and the soul becomes dark and
self-seeking, and without purposes of good. Sometimes
extravagant and nameless horrors of vice show what
man without God may be capable of::}: but always the
want of God has been accompanied by want of love and
of good purposes and of self-government. And the
wages of sin have been death ; a death of the spirit in
men that seemed to live.

5. Kow it is idle to discuss whether we ought to say

* For example, see the opening chapter of Buchcz, ' Science de 1'Histoire.'
t Theophylact. in Luc. 14. % Rom. i. 28. Gal. v. 19.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHEIST. 4^3

that our Lord became a curse for us, if we have not ex-
hausted the direct evidence of what He became and
suffered for us. Did He or did He not put His neck
under the yoke of this curse and bear His share of it?

Did He claim any social exemption ? He accepted
the evils of poverty ; it followed Him from the manger
to the carpenter's workshop, to the wilderness. For
thirty years He dwelt with a family that did not under-
stand Him, in a city that despised Him and would rebel
against His first efforts to teach. His conversation was
not among scholars* nor statesmen ; but with lepers and
lunatics, with halt and maimed, with men afflicted and
possessed. All the sufferings of our social state, all that
makes the aspect of society painful to a feeling heart,
were brought around Him, and He showed no repug-
nance. The twelve whom He chose for His friends, to
receive His constant teaching, were dull scholars, who
knew Him not, even to the end. At last a disciple be-
trayed Him ; the priest of His Father pronounced that
it was good that He should die for the people ; the
Prince of the chosen people was o>elivered up by them
to the Gentiles, and put to death; and His disciples
fled in terror from His side.

But it is to be observed that, even if the death of
our Lord had not taken place, even if He had ascended
in glory without being put to death in shame, it would
have been true that He became a curse for us. In
point of justice there would be no question of degree ;
and even if there had been no death, that Jesus should
have suffered even one look of scorn from some proud
ISTazarene who knew him as the carpenter's son, and
this on our account, would involve the whole discussion
of the Divine justice. The sinless and the just has suf-
fered something which He did not deserve, be it little
or great. If we are so rash as to impugn the Divine
justice at all, understanding it so little, we must begin
before the cross, with, the first indignity, with the first
pressure of earthly want. It is, perhaps, natural that
the shocking discrepancy between the Divine sufferer

* Luke iv. 28.]

414

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VIIL

and the mode of His death should shock our sense of
justice more than all that had gone before; because
'death awakens our sympathies more powerfully than
the less harrowing incidents of a life of hardship. But
if we are to appeal to a metaphysical theory of Divine
justice, we must analyze our facts more exactly; and
then one of our first admissions must be, that if it is
unjust to slay it is unjust to smite or to degrade. And
in order to set our theory going, we shall have to soften
with docetic glosses not only the account of the passion,
but that of the whole life of the Kedeemer.

But he tastes also the bitterness of death. Death
came by disobedience ; and the fear of death, and of
all the possible consequences of death, has been one of
the burdens of the human race ever since. " Through
fear of death" men "were all their lifetime subject
unto bondage." * One who should be exempt from the
fear of death would not bear the whole burden of man's
condition. How far was the Eedeemer partaker of
this fear? Perhaps it is difficult to sever the dread of
death from the burden of sin which was in death to be
born ; but towards the close of the history we see the
Eedeemer girding Himself for the terrible suffering,
" steadfastly setting his face to go to Jerusalem,"t ex-
pressing His state of pain until the baptism that He
must be baptized with could be accomplished 4 Tears
had fallen from His eyes at seeing the stroke of death
take effect on Lazarus his friend; and from the thought
of His own death there was that shrinking which be-
longs to a man. He shared our curse in tasting the
bitterness of death.

And with the thought of death must have mingled
a still more gloomy thought— the sense of the weight
of sin. It is at this point that some will cease to go
along with us. That any true feeling of sin, as of a
burden on His own spirit, can ever have belonged to
Jesus, is what some, careful for the honour of then-
Lord, will not admit. Let us refrain from theories on
such a subject on both sides. But there are two places

* Heb. ii. 15. t Matt. x. 32. X Luke xii. 50.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CUEIST. 4^5

of the Gospel history that cannot be understood except
on the supposition that sin and the power of darkness
were suffered to press upon Him with a terrible weight.
The scene in Gethsemane is one which Christians
would fain keep out of their disputes ; * yet it is de-
scribed for our instruction, and we must venture to enter
there. And it seems to me that those who would place
all the import of the Lord's death in its being a heroic
termination of a heroic and devout life, and an example
of a faith true to itself even in extremity, receive under
these olive-trees their most complete refutation. For,
first, the Redeemer here appeal's harrowed by a misery
which many a martyr has been free from, utterly per-
turbed by a prospect which a Stephen, an Ignatius, a
Ridley viewed without dismay. If no more than death
is in question, we should expect an example of calm
reliance on the present help of God. But we find the
unaccountable agony, the bloody sweat, the prayer for
deliverance : all fortifying and calming influences seem
withdrawn for a time from Him who through His life
so constantly enjoyed them. We are astonished that
the curse of our race should be suffered to press in all
its terrible reality upon the sinless and divine Son. Yet
there is the description of His great struggle. We can-
not refuse to see that it relates to One utterly broken
down for a time in a wretchedness beyond our concep-
tion, a prey to thoughts which, judging by their out-
ward effects, were far darker than those of the felon the
night before his execution, when He counts [the quar-
ters of each hour, and hears the hammers that are busy
at his scaffold. If our salvation is to be made an easier
work, if the price paid is to be abated, we must forget
Gethsemane or deny it.f But if we believe with the

* " A feeling always seizes me," says Krummacher, " as if it were unbe-
coming to act as a spy on the Son of the living God in His last secret
transactions with His heavenly Father ; and that a sinful eye ventures too
much in daring to look upon a scene in which the Lord appears in such a
state of weakness and abandonment that places Him on the same footing
with the most miserable among men."

t Mr. Garden, whose theory is that the Lord would never have felt misery,
is here consistent. He forgets Gethsemane altogether : he quotes only our
Lord's words upon the Cross. — Tracts, &c, p. 10.

416 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay VIII.

Apostle that " God hath made Him to be sin for us
AVho knew no sin, that we might be made the right-
eousness of God in Him,"* then the terror and the
agony become accountable. All the inner horror of
sin is revealed to Him. Sin in its nakedness is more
horrible than death. And He sees it as it is; the
blasphemous self-worship that it is, the revolt against
God, the violation of order, the death in life. And all
this sin is His, though He is sinless of it : for He has
thrown in His lot with men, and has proposed to Him-
self the task of breaking down this foul and destroying
tyranny. The mystery of that agency lies in the com-
pleteness of His humanity. He is no bystander, watch-
ing how men sin. He is one of themselves, but with
the power of God over them to make their interests His
own. In Him, as God, they live, and move, and have
their being: and now the power of darkness is let loose
to show Him all the sin and misery, and defiance of
God, that He, by clothing Himself with human nature,
has taken into His bosom. The words of the Lord upon
the cross are an echo from the garden of agony: "Why
hast Thou forsaken me?" These words from the
twenty-second Psalm, uttered at such a moment, are of
course no mere ejaculation of pain; they recall a Psalm
which, as any one may see, contains matter that can
apply to Messiah only. But the words themselves ex-
press a sense of desertion by God: they can have no
other meaning. Vain would it be to attempt to explain
how He, one with the Father, and never severed from
Him by spot or stain of guilt, could have admitted such
a feeling. But there are the words : we dare not deny
them. They belong to Him, not as Son of God, but
as burdened with the sins of the world. They express
perhaps the complete separation which sin makes be-
tween man and God. He is now the Advocate of all
mankind ; and their separation from God because of
sin extends itself to Him for a season. It appears, then,
that the question whether the wrath of God can be said
to have fallen upon the Son, who has done no sin, is no

* 2 Cor. v. 21.

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 4^

verbal question, but a question of fact. Jesus did suf-
fer all those things which are the evident tokens of
wrath against us. He tried the sufferings of our dis-
jointed social state ; He knew the fear of death, and the
anguish of sin which separates from God. The motives
of those who would -protect his name from the sup-
posed contamination of sin, are not unworthy of respect.
u Be it far from thee, Lord ! " came from one who loved
his Lord sincerely; but "Get thou behind me, Satan!"
was the answer he received. When the Son of God is
minded, of His own free will and His exceeding love
towards our race, to come down from heaven, and in
the form of a servant to explore all the secrets of our
vile condition, it is more reverent in us to observe and
love His condescension, than to say, out of some private
text-book of morality, "This shall not be unto thee!"
The mystery of evil is far beyond our rules and meas-
ures. There must be a cause when such a great act
of condescension had to be clone. But done it was;
and when all the vials of wrath were poured out upon
His head, and when He did not shrink from receiving
them, it is idle to discuss whether this shall be called
wrath or love ; when He smarted under all that we call
punishment, it is idle to say that it must have another
name.

But you that are so jealous lest the name of sin
should attach to the sinless One, carry the jealousy an-
other step. When the Pharisees revile and the Priests
entrap the Lord, and when the scourging, and the
buffets, and the spitting mangle and defile His innocent
frame, you think that nature itself should give tokens
of indignation. And yet, how close to God sin has ever
come! how sins have ever polluted and defiled the
world, which is His temple ! and you have not con-
ceived of the sins in that light, as sins that touch Him.
When a man slays his brother, or pollutes the virtue
of a women, and each is dear to the Almighty Maker,
does not the murderer smite God, and the betrayer spit
upon Him? and the long-sufTering Euler of the world
bears, as in His bosom, all our wayward sins, and
18*

413 AIDS TO FAITH. [EssatYIIL

weaves them into the web of His providence, and con-
trives an order of things in which these evil elements
may work and not destroy. Jealous of the Son's con-
tact with sin, can we not, by a larger reach of the same
morality, conceive that the Father's contact with, and
permission of sin, is a profound mystery? Can you
not see in this fact a greater hideousness in evil, since
every day that it is permitted seems to impugn the
justice or the power of Him who could abolish every
sin, with the doers of it, by the breath of His mouth ?
If so, let us at least assent to the position that a disease
so utterly past our comprehension may require means
to cure it that shock the ordinary conclusions of our
conscience ; and that a wider view, if we could stand
high enough to take it, might correct oar crude im-
pressions.

6. The doctrine of Atonement is many-sided, as all
mysteries are when we try to express them in the forms
of human thought. And no doctrine has suffered so
much, on the part both of friend and foe, from a one-
sided treatment. "It has been said, that this doctrine
represents the Almighty as moved with fury at the
insults offered to His Supreme Majesty, as impatient to
pour forth His fury upon some being, as indifferent
whether that being deserves it or not, and as perfectly
appeased upon finding an object of vengeance in His
own innocent Son. It has been said, that a doctrine
which represents the Almighty as sternly demanding a
full equivalent for that which was due to Him, and as
receiving that equivalent in the sufferings of His Son,
transfers all the affection and gratitude of the human
race from an inexorable Being, who did not remit any
part of His right, to another being who satisfied His
claim. It has been said, that a translation of guilt is
impossible, because guilt is personal; and that a doc-
trine which represents the innocent as punished instead
of the guilty, and the guilty as escaping by this punish-
ment, contradicts the first principles of justice, subverts
all our ideas of a righteous government, and, by hold-
ing forth an example of reward and punishment dis-

Essay VIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 419

pensecl by Heaven, without any regard to the character
of those who receive them, does encourage men to live
as they please."* So the objections were summed up
many years since, and there is little to alter after the
recent controversy. Now, most of these objections
have arisen from a crude and one-sided way of stating
the doctrine on the part of its friends, and disappear
when all the elements of the truth are taken in. Sin
exists ; and therewith must enter a host of contradic-
tions. Sin is that which turns the love of God into
wrath ; not into the passion of wrath as men feel it, but
to the intention of visiting with punishment. With sin,
the face of God is altered against us and turned away.
We know the theological objections to this mode of
speaking, but there is no other open to us. God can-
not change ; but yet His purpose towards us is changed
in its workings by ourselves. And this enormous power
all classes of Christians assign to sin, that it can dam
up and divert the current of Divine love, that set so
strongly towards us. We are obliged to pick our ex-
pressions, whenever we touch the subject, lest sin itself
should be laid to the account of Him who is the gov-
ernor of the world, and suffers sin in the world. Sin
turns love to wrath, the life of our souls to the death
of them, our light to darkness, our free adherence to
God to enmity against Him. From this view of sin, as
something which is suffered to thwart the free work-
ings of God's love, and which casts shadows as of the
darkness of Gethsemane over all the scenes of history,
where evil is suffered to come in and overcloud the
good, there is no escape except in the pantheistic view,
which reads all sin and evil as good in a transition
state. And against that view conscience will ever pro-
test ; for it is the best proof of our still retaining ves-
tiges of good that conscience finds all the suggestions
of physiological materialists, and of metaphysical pan-
theists, powerless to lull to sleep the sense of individual
guilt, which yet she has so strong an interest in getting

* Rev. Dr. Hill's Lectures, b. ir., ch. 3, quoted by Dr. Caudlish.

420 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

rid of. To remove sin and its consequences God sent
His Son, the Eternal AVord of the Father, to become
truly man as He was truly God, and to mediate between
men and Him for their relief. It is not true, whatever
friend or foe shall say it, that God looked forth on His
works to find some innocent man able and willing to
bear the weight of His wrath, and found Jesus and
punished Him. It is all false, because it is only half
true. The Son of God took our nature upon Him, and
therewith the sins of it, at least in their consequences ;
not because He became one man among many, but be-
cause when God takes man's nature He still has divine
right and power over all, and so manhood is taken into
God. That sinfulness should press upon the Son of
God, in any of its consequences, revolts us at first ; nay,
it was intended to revolt us and thereby to secure our
repentance : and jealous for His honour we protest that
of sin He shall know nothing. Yes : but we have been
flaunting our sins in the face of the Father, to His dis-
pleasure, ever since we were born ; using the limbs He
makes and keeps strong, for purposes of lust and vio-
lence; quickening the pulses that He controls, with
draughts of passionate excitement : in a^word, sinning
before God's face and under His hand. Is it less shock-
ing that sin should be in the world which is God's, than
that it should be in the manhood which is Christ's ?
!No : both before and after the incarnation sin is a con-
tradiction ; and it is less difficult to conceive sin taken
by the Son upon Himself for a time and by way of
remedy, than it is to understand it as suffered by the
Father always as a permitted destruction. The punish-
ment in this transaction falls on the innocent. And we
are told that such a doctrine is cruel, unjust, and use-
less : cruel, because it punishes where it could forgive ;
useless, because it misses the true end of punishment
in striking the guiltless, which can never deter from
guilt; and unjust, because it falls on one who knows
no sin. But it is not cruel, if it thereby marks for ever
the enormity of sin which needed such a sacrifice ; it is
not useless, if it changed the relation of man to God,

Essay VIII.] THE DExVTH OF CHRIST. 421

and if in fact it has ever since been turning men to
holiness and " drawing all men unto" Jesus ;* and it is
not unjust, because the Father's will to punish never
outstripped the Son's to suffer, and because His death
was a solemn offering of Himself in love, for man's re-
demption. Nor can there be any tendency to transfer
from the severe Father to the loving Son, the love we
owe to both ; for the mode of our redemption was de-
signed by both, and the Son adopts the Father's and
the Father sanctions the Son's loving self-sacrifice.
Nor is there the least pretext for saying that this doc-
trine encourages men to live as they please, by holding
forth the spectacle of rewards earned for those who do
not deserve them and punishments warded off from
those who deserve them well : since the blood of the
Redeemer, all-sufficient as it is to cleanse the sins of
the world, saves from wrath only those who repent and
turn to Him. The power of the doctrine of the Atone-
ment has been felt wherever the Gospel has come. It
has carried comfort to sinners where nothing else could
do so. Wherever the conviction of sin has been deep-
est, the power of the Cross has been most conspicuous ;
and this in the face of objections which it was not left
to modern times to suggest, against such a punishment
for such a deliverer. Let it still be preached ; and our
lesson from these controversies be that we preach the
whole of it, so far as Scripture informs and our mind
comprehends. Let us not so exalt the justice of God
that we seem to record the harshness of a tyrant, and
not the device of a Father seeking to bring His children
back. Let us not so dwell on the love of Christ as to
forget that one great moral purpose of this sacrifice
was to set the mark of God s indignation upon sin.
Let us not so offer the benefits of the Cross to our peo-
ple as to lose sight of it as a means of their crucifying
their own flesh and dying to their own sins. He bare
our sins in His own body on the tree ; He is our ran-
som', our propitiation ; He is made sin for us ; because

* John xii. 32.

422 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay VIII.

God is just. He laid down His life for the sheep, out
of love, and God so loved the world that He gave Him
for this labour ; because God is love : and wre are to
run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith ; be-
cause the work of justice and love has restored us to
our position of moral freedom and moral life, and we
must live as the redeemed servants of our Lord.

ESSAY IX.

SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION.

CONTENTS OF ESSAY IX.

Sect. 1. Tiie alleged variations in
the Interpretation of Scrip-
ture, p. 425.

1. Introductory comments and defini-

tions.

2. Present attitudes and expectations.

3. Amount of varying interpretations

much exaggerated— as shown by,
first, Ancient and modern versions ;
secondly, Comparison of earlier and
later expositions.

4. Literal and historical mode of inter-

pretation adopted from the first.

5. Eecapitulation.

Sect. 2. The Characteristics of Scrip-
ture, p. 445.

C. Differences of interpretation in de-
tails.

7. This diversity in unity to be account-
ed for— I. By the difference of the
Bible from every other book.— II.
By the fact that Scripture often in-
volves more than one meaning : — as
shown by (1) Applications of pro-
phecy, (2) Types, (3) Deeper mean-
ings, "even in historical passages. —
III. By the fact that Scripture is
divinely inspired.

S. Examination of the assertions of op-
ponents concerning the Inspiration
of Scripture, as regards, first, the
Testimony of Scripture in reference
to itself; secondly, the Statements
of the Early Church ; thirdly, the
Subjective testimony.

9. Affirmative observations upon Inspi-
ration— Considerations concerning,

first, its Mode ; secondly, its Lim-
its; thirdly, its Degree.

10. Eecapitulation.

Sect. 3. General Eules of Interpre-
tation, p. 480.

11. Preliminary comments— Duty of

Prayer — Necessity for candour.

12. Eules for the Interpretation of Scrip-

ture.— 1st Eule— Interpret gram-
matically—-Examples. 2nd Eule—
Interpret historically — Examples.
3rd Eule— Interpret contextually —
Examples. 4th Eule— Interpret
minutely— Examples. Failure of
these rules in cases of difficulty.
Gradual emergence of supplemen-
tary rules. 5th Eule — Interpret ac-
cording to the analogy of faith.

13. Concluding observations.

Sect. 4. The Application of Scripture,
p. 513.

14. Application of Scripture considered

in reference to, I. Prophecy and
Typology— II. Second and deeper
meanings — III. Practical and spe-
cial deductions.

Sect. 5. Grammar and the laws of

THE LETTER, p. 522.

15. Introductory remarks.

16. General character of the language of

the New Testament, as compared
with earlier and later Greek.

17. Peculiarities as shown in details, es-

pecially in reference to (1) the Arti-
cle, (2) Substantives, (3) Verbs, (4)
Prepositions, (5) Particles.
IS. Conclusion.

SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION.

1. It can hardly be considered strange that great
differences of opinion should exist respecting the inter-
pretation of Scripture. When we consider the nature
of the Sacred Writings, their number, their variety, the
different epochs to which they belong, and the vast pe-
riod of time over which they extend, we can hardly be
surprised to find the opinions concerning the interpre-
tation of the Volume into which they are collected not
only to be various, but even conflicting. When we
turn from the outward to the inward, and ponder over
"that inexhaustible and infinite character " of the Sa-
cred Writings, which even the better portion of our op-
ponents are not unwilling to concede, — when we observe
that " depth and inwardness," which, it has been rightly
considered, require something corresj^onding in the in-
terpreter himself, — when we reverentially recognize
throughout the Volume references alike to the past, the
present, and the future ; teachings in history only partly
realised, lessons in prophecy "not yet learned even in
theory," germs of truth which, we are told, have yet to
take root in the world, — when we consider all this, are
we to wonder that differences of opinion exist concern-
ing the interpretation of a volume so ancient, so won-
drous, and so multiform?

It would indeed be strange if it had been otherwise ;
it would be a phenomenon in the literary or mental his-
tory of Christianity not easy to account for, if expound-
ers of Scripture had been found always accordant in
their views ; nay, it may even be considered a subject
for surprise, though for thankfulness, that the differ-

426 AIE)S TO FAITH. [Essay IX

ences of opinion about the interpretation of a volume
such as we have described are not greater than we find
them to be.

When, however, we are thus speaking of the differ-
ences of opinion respecting the interpretation of Scrip-
ture (and we are using the language of opponents), let
us, from the very outset, agree to avoid all ambiguities
in language. Let us be careful not to fall into an error
which we may fairly impute to those with whom wre
are contending, — the error, to choose the mildest expres-
sion, of using terms of a vague and undefined charac-
ter, and, as the sequel will show, of a somewhat conven-
ient elasticity. What do we mean by differences re-
specting the interpretation of Scripture? We may
mean two things. Either we may mean that there
have been differences of opinion about the meanings
of the actual words of Scripture, or we may mean that
there have been differences of opinion about the man-
ner in which those meanings have been obtained. We
may include both if we choose in the same form of
words, but in so doing let us not fail to apprise the
reader, and in conducting the argument let us act with
fairness. Let us be careful to recognize the clear logi-
cal difference between these two meanings, and avoid
that really culpable method of dealing with a momen-
tous subject wThich does not scruple to mix up illus-
trations or arguments derived from one of its aspects
with those which really and plainly belong to the other.
There may have been from the very first many methods
of interpreting Scripture : allegory may have prevailed
in one age, mysticism in another ; scholastic methods
of interpretation may have been succeeded by rhetori-
cal, and these again may both have given place to
methods in which grammar and history may have
borne a more prominent part. All this may have been
so, but it still does not necessarily follow that the mean-
ings actually assigned to any given text have been as
manifold or as discordant as the methods which may
have been adopted to obtain them. The modes and
principles of interpretation may have been very differ-

Essay IX.J SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 427

eat, and yet, in the main, they may have led to very
accordant results. Such a probability, however, is now
somewhat studiously passed over in silence, or men-
tioned only to be dismissed as unworthy of serious con-
sideration. The object, we fear, is to create anxiety
and uneasiness, to unfix and to unloosen, to awaken a
general feeling of distrust in current interpretations,
and, in the case of doctrinal statements and every form
of exposition that involves a reference to the analogy
of faith, to arouse even hostility and antagonism. This
has been done of late, as we have already implied, by
a judicious combination of two methods of proceeding,
— on the one hand, by calling attention to the discord-
ances of interpretation in a few extreme cases where
such discordance is sure to be a maximum; on the
other, by dwelling exclusively on the varieties of the
different systems and methods of interpretation, and
leaving it to be inferred that the results arrived at are
as various and diversified as the methods by which
they have been obtained. In a word, such a phenom-
enon as a Catholic interpretation, substantially the
same under all systems but varied only in details or ap-
plication, is assumed to be an exegetical impossibility.
The true state of the case we are told is this, — that
Scripture has had every possible variety of meaning
assigned to it, that it has been understood to say this
to one age and that to another, that all hitherto has
been conflict or uncertainty. We learn, however, that
now a better era is dawning ; that a fundamental prin-
ciple, viz., that Scripture has one meaning and one
meaning only, has at length clearly been made out ;
and that a little "free-handling," a few assumptions,
and a free use of a so-called " verifying faculty," will
finally adjust all difficulties and discordances in the in-
terpretation of the. Book of Life.

There is obviously something very attractive in all
this. There is a fascination in the whole procedure
that imperfectly disciplined or willingly sceptical minds
find it impossible to resist. There is the charm of the
alleged discovery that criticism at last has made, the

428 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

attractiveness of the generalization, the variety of the
modes of applying the principle so as to meet all needs,
whether of the reader, the preacher, the missionary,
the teacher, or the interpreter, — and then the retro-
spect, the backward look of serene triumph over the ac-
cumulated errors and prejudices of eighteen long Chris-
tian centuries, all chased away by the brightness of this
second Reformation and the "burst of intellectual life"
that is at last becoming visible above the clouded hori-
zon of Scriptural interpretation. One topmost stone,
and the monument of our exegetical successes must be
pronounced complete. Philosophy and Theology claim
of us, we are told, as of value to themselves a history
of the past. Be it so. Let us take the pen of the his-
torian and sit down and trace the record of our own
mental supremacy in a history of the prejudices and
errors of the Exegesis of the past. Let us show by
this tacit comparison how "great names must be ac-
counted small," how few ever " bent their mind to in-
terrogate the meaning of words," how men who were
accounted benefactors of the human race have yet only
left to us the heritage of erring fancies and party-bias,
— let us write the history of all this littleness, confu-
sion, and bondage to the letter, and the fabric of our
own greatness, harmony, and intellectual freedom will
appear by the contrast only the more stately and
unique.

Such is the dream of the present. Such, statedin
no exaggerated or unkindly terms, is the course which
men whose general goodness and high principles we
have no cause to doubt or deny are now inviting us to
follow. What are we to say of all this ? The comment
rises to the lips, but we suppress it. We may feel, per-
haps, that as in Corinth of old so now in nineteenth-
century England, vain knowledge may puff up, yet re-
membering that " love edifieth," we sit by silent and
wondering, even though the fire is kindling within, and
silence is'becoming a pain and a grief to us. At first
perhaps we prepare to answer the call to join the wise
and tranquil few. who, knowing that the Eternal Spirit

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 429

has been ever present with the Church, and that what
things were written aforetime were written, not for our
contempt but for our learning, smile pensively at these
childish exultations and straw-woven crowns, and see
in them only one more of the premature triumphs, that
have been claimed for some shifting form of the errors
or heresies of the time. "We feel tempted to join this
quiet company, and calmly to smile as they alone can
smile whose feet stand within the sheltering walls of
the City of God, and whose faith is that which was not
only delivered but handed down to the saints in each
age of the Church of Christ. "What can we do but
smile, when we recognize old quibbles and difficulties
all mustered up again, disguised in new trappings, and
arranged in new combinations, — but yet the same, the
very same that have been dispersed a hundred times
over, and which the very generation to which we now
belong will see dispersed again, though it may be to
ally themselves finally with powers and principles of
which at present they are only permitted to act as the
scout and the courier?

But with this last thought the smile fades away.
When we remember that the forms of error which of
late have been reappearing among us may belong, con-
sciously or unconsciously, to the great apostasy of the
future, — when we observe how they instinctively asso-
ciate themselves with masked or avowed denyings of
the Divinity of our blessed Lord, and of the full effi-
cacy of His sacrifice, — when we mark how their vani-
ties and self-confidences bear a strange family likeness
to that Pelagian pride in the perfectibility of our cor-
rupted nature which tears open the wounds of a cruci-
fied Lord more heartlessly than the hands that first in-
flicted them, — when we ponder over that puffed up and
unyoked spirit of the day that is now calling on us to
clear away the remains of dogmas and controversies,
and when we see, as we must see, with a shudder, that
it is but the harbinger of him who is to set himself
against everything " that is called God or that is wor-
shipped" (2 Thess. ii. 4), — then it does seem our duty

430 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX

to play our part in the great controversy, to quit our-
selves like men, and to strive with all Christian ear-
nestness, with stern brow yet with true and loving
heart, to rescue the endangered souls of our own time
and age, and to bring them back into the City of God.
2. The position of the defender of the faith in the
present day is that of one whose home and citizenship
is in the City " that lieth four-square," whose builder
and whose maker is God. The storm of battle has often
raged round those massive walls, wild rout and turmoil
have often striven to shake those solid gates. Pass-
words have been tried ; treachery has played its das-
tardly part, — but all stands firm and sure. The rising
sun that smites on the broad front of those fair walls
and towers, beholds them as stately in their strength
and their beauty as they were ever of old ; .the shadows
they cast when day declines are as many and as length-
ened as they were of yore. Who within would wish
to see a stone displaced, who would fain see one battle-
ment laid low ? Perhaps none who are really and truly
within the circuit of those sheltering walls. But there
are voices without that we know full well, voices of
those with whom we have dwelt as friends, whose God
has been our Gocl, and whose Lord has been our Lord,
— men who went from among us on strange missions,
and are come back to tell us strange tidings, and to
bid us do strange deeds. That beleaguering host whose
flaunting standards we can see on every wooded knoll
around, and whose open or covert assaults our fathers
and forefathers have experienced so often, and resisted
so sucessfully and so long, — that motley eager host they
tell us is not composed of foes but of friends and well-
wishers, changed by civilization and the glory of hu-
man development, eager to meet us as kindred and
brothers if we will but remove the envious barriers
that separate us, relics of a religious feudalism, as they
term it, long passed away. Shall creeds sep'arate
brothers ? Shall doctrines divide those whom unity
of race and shared civilizations plainly declare to be
one and inseparable? Shall we churlishly strive any

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEEEETATION, 43}

longer to stint the growth of the ideal man? Shall
the orient and glowing future be darkened with jealous-
ies of sects and rivalries of religions ? u We are cou-
riers," they impetuously cry aloud ; " ambassadors,
friends of both, friends of truth, • friends of Christ.
Unbar, then, these envious gates ; down with these un-
friendly w^alls ; let us learn from each other the great
lesson of mutual concessions, and so at last realize the
great hope of the future, the fabled restitution of theo-
logians, and at last, all in fraternal triumph, merge
into the one great family of Truth and of Love." Such
are the voices now sounding in our ears ; voices that the
young and the generous, as well as the godless and the
worldworn, give ear to with ready sympathy. J3ut shall
the true defenders of the ark of their God, that ark of
the New Covenant wherein lie the written words of
life, yield it and themselves up to this stratagem which
one " whose time is short" has put into the hearts of
unconscious instruments? Never. God defend us
from such fearful, such frantic disloyalty ! God indeed
forbid that, in any sense, however modified, it should
hereafter be the boast of the spirits of perdition, that
it was with the City of the hills even worse than it
was with a city of the plain, — that the host wound
round it, that sounding brass brayed forth and eager
voices shouted, and that, mined by traitorous occupants,
wall and tower fell flat as those of Jericho, and fell
never to rise again !

Such, it would seem, is the allegory of our own
times — such no overdrawn picture of the exact atti-
tude in which true believers now appear to stand. We
are called upon by specious words to give up every
defence which the mercies of God have permitted to be
reared up around us ; and our reward is to he a bond-
age, to which the bondage of the worst age of the
Church of Rome would be found light and endurable.
There is no bondage like that of scepticism. There is
no intolerance more intolerable than that of those who
are themselves the servante of a hard master. It may
be a bondage different to bondages of the past in its

432 A1DS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

mode of being brought about, but it is no less complete
and coercive. It is the bondage of contempt and of
scorn. Do we doubt it ? Are there not writings of our
own times, writings that claim scholars and ministers of
the Gospel for their authors, that show, only too pain-
fully, what we have to expect if we -allow such to
be leaders of thought among us, if wall and tower are
to be thrown down to let such men come in and have
the rule over us ? Granted that there may be numer-
ous exceptions, that there may be those who, even
while we are compelled to number them among our
secret foes, we may be free to own have many kindly
and elevated sympathies, — granted that there may be
silver sounds heard amid all this clanging brass, yet
does not common sense, does not history itself tell us,
that the voices of this better part will be the first to be si-
lenced ; that their kindly idealisms will be rudely swept
aside to make room for varied and repulsive forms of
aggressive materialism ; that they will themselves be
the earliest victims of the Frankenstein their own hands
have helped to shape into existence ? Let the thought-
ful reader pause only for a moment to muse upon some
of the present aspects of modern society as revealed by,
as commented on, and sometimes even as defended by,
our public papers, and then answer to his own heart
what he thinks must be the issue if laxity of religious
thought seriously increase among us. Yice will borrow
its excuses from scepticism ; lawlessness of act will be-
come the natural sequel of lawlessness of thought ; and
the end will be, no noble, colossal, heavenward-looking,
ideal man, but a grovelling satyr, the slave of his own
appetites, and the vassal of his own abominations.

But we must pass on to, or rather return to, the sub-
ject which lies more immediately before us. Enough,
perhaps, has been said to show that there can be no
safe compromise, no over-liberal parleying with those
without, be they the kindliest or the most silver-
tongued of the children of men. The believer of the
present day must put himself in the attitude of an op-
ponent, kind indeed it may be, and large in heart and

Essay IX.] SCFJPTUKE, AND ITS INTEEPKETATION. 433

sympathies, ready and anxious to rescue, prompt to
spare, — yet an opponent ; one who, when asked to give
up old principles, may not, for the sake of others,
wholly refuse to hear the nature of the demand, but
who hears it with a full knowledge of the true attitude
and posture of those by whom it is urged. We are
asked especially to give up old principles in the inter-
pretation of the Word of God. Some concession, we
are warned, is almost imperatively demanded. We ask
why. We bid our opponents state their reasons for a
demand so sweeping and comprehensive. One of these
reasons we have heard already, and we have already
observed that it involves an ambiguity. We are told
that the differences respecting the interpretation of
Scripture are such that they show that prejudice rather
than principle is the true mainspring of Scriptural
exegesis. Pictures are held up to us of the successive
schools of interpreters, their follies and their fallacies,
their bondage to the influences of the age in which they
lived, their hostility to all intellectual freedom. Be it
so ; but is it proved that the interpretations which they
actually advanced are as varied as their methods of
procedure are so confidently alleged to be ? Whether
a great deal too much has not been said even on this
subject, whether the diversities or antagonisms of early
systems of explaining Scripture have not greatly been
exaggerated, is a question into which here we will not
enter. Our inquiry is simply, whether the differences
of interpretation are at all more than the nature and im-
portance of the subject-matter would lead us to expect,
and whether a great deal that has been said about the
differences of interpretation does not wholly belong to
the differences of the modes of procedure. It is, of
course, quite natural and conceivable that the spirit of
each age may have swayed teacher and preacher more
to this method than to that ; that passing controversies
may have left their traces, and that declarations which
seemed of great moment to one generation may not
have been found equally so to another. All this may
be so, but with this we are now only partially con-
19

434 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX

cerned. If we were endeavouring to form an estimate
of the variety of deductions that have been made from
the words of Scripture in different ages of the Church,
or were discussing the varying applications that the same
sentiment has been found to bear, much that has been
said on the subj ect might pass unchallenged. We should
probably account for these varied forms of application
or deduction on different principles to our opponents ;
we might see, for instance, in all this diversity of appli-
cation only evidences of " the manifold wisdom of
God," and of that hidden life with all its varying apti-
tudes to human needs which we know to be in the
Written Word. Our opponents, on the contrary, might
see in it only evidences of the folly, ignorance, preju-
dice, or bad faith of successive expositors : we might
differ widely in our manner of accounting for these
different applications of Scripture, but we might to a
great extent agree as to their number and variety.
This, however, is not the question between us. What
we are now told is not merely that the applications or
adaptations of Scripture have been very varied, but
that the difference of actual meaning assigned to the
words of Scripture by expositors of different ages is so
suspiciously excessive, that the duty of purging our
minds from past prejudices is imperative, and that
Scripture, must henceforth be explained on sounder
principles. The one true meaning must be discovered
and adopted, the many disregarded or rejected, The
first question between us, then, is a question of amount
and of degree. Our opponents assert that Scripture
has had so many meanings, often too so hostile and
suicidal, that it presents one meaning to the" French-
man, another to the German, and another to the Eng-
lishman. We are asked if this is not in itself an utter
absurdity, and if it is not time to enter upon some more
reasonable course. That assumed reasonable course is
sketched out ; canons of interpretation are laid down ;
appeals are not wanting to current prejudices ; disin-
clination or inaptitude for that wrestling with the Word
of God which marked earlier and better ages of the

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 435

Church is dealt gently with ; disregard of the great
exegetical writings of the past is not only excused but
commended ; we are advised wholly to trust to our-
selves, and are cheered by the assurance that " if we
will only confine ourselves to the plain meaning of
words and the study of their context," we may bene-
ficially dispense with all the expository labours of the
past or of the present. Such is the modem mode of
dealing with one of the most momentous subjects of
our own times, and with which personal holiness and
man's salvation are more intimately connected than with
any other that can be specified. Is it unfair to charac-
terize the whole as nothing more than positive asser-
tions, resting on ambiguities of language, or on the
assumed identity of things logically different, and sup-
ported by covert appeals to the idleness, vanity, and
self-sufficiency of the clay ?

3. We revert, however, to the preliminary question
before us. Are the differences of meaning that have
been assigned to Scripture such in amount as they are
said to be, and such as to demand the rehabilitation of
Scriptural interpretation which is now proposed ? Are
they such that, as it has been asserted, Scripture bears
an utterly different meaning to men of different ages
and nations? Assuredly not. No statement seems
more completely at variance with our general Christian
consciousness ; no assertion can more readily be dis-
proved when we come to details. These, however, can
never be made palatable to the general reader, nor are
they commonly convincing, unless carried out much
further than would be possible in an Essay of this na-
ture. To prove clearly and distinctly that there is not
this great amount of discordance in the interpretations
of Scripture, it would be necessary to compare, and that
not in a few selected cases, but in a portion of Scripture
of some length, the results arrived at by commentators
of different ages and countries. Less than this would
fail to convince ; for in the case of a few prerogative
instances, which would be all we should have space for,
the feeling is ever apt to arise that lists equally telling

436 A1DS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

and convincing could be made out on the other side.
We have, therefore, as it would seem, little left us than
to meet assertion by counter-assertion, and leave each
reader to ascertain for himself on which side the truth
lies, — whether the differences in the interpretations of
Scripture (except in a comparatively few cases) have
been thus excessive, or whether there has not been a
very considerable amount of accordance in general
matters, and variations only in details. Those who are
acquainted with the subject, and have had experience
in referring to expository treatises belonging to different
ages and countries, will have no difficulty in pronounc-
ing which is the true state of the case, and whether
assertion or counter-assertion is to be deemed most
worthy of credit. As, however, the general reader is
not always likely to have it in his power to decide be-
tween the two statements, and as the mere denial of the
major in an opponent's syllogism is never satisfactory
without some reasons being assigned, we will mention
one or two general considerations which, though not
amounting to a positive proof that Scripture has not
been interpreted as diversely as has been asserted, may
yet render it probable that such is the case, and supply
some grounds for the counter-assertion above alluded to.
In the first place, we may perhaps with justice ap-
peal to the Ancient Versions, especially when combined
with some of the best Modern Versions, as tending to
show that the amount of variety in interpretation is not
so great as has been imagined. Let us take, for exam-
ple, seven of the best Ancient Versions of the New
Testament — the Syriac (Peshito), the Old Latin (as far
as it has been ascertained), the Vulgate, the Gothic, the
Coptic, the Ethiopic (Pell Piatt's), and the Armenian,
and with them let us associate the Authorized English
Version and Luther's German Version, and then pro-
ceed to inquire what general opinion a comparison of
the characteristics of these Versions leads us to form as
to the question of a prevailing unanimity, or a prevail-
ing discordance, of interpretation, as far as it can be
evinced by a Version. Now, admitting on the one

EssatIX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEEEETATION. 43^

hand that there may be such relations existing between
some of these Versions, that each can hardly be consid-
ered an independent witness, — that the Vulgate, for
example, is but an amended form of the Old Latin, that
the Ethiopic sometimes seems to indicate dependence
on the Syriac, that the Armenian was retouched at a
late period, and possibly that the Vulgate was in the
hands of the reviser, — admitting all this, and making
also a deduction for the influence of the Vulgate, and,
perhaps, to some small extent, of the Syriac over the
two Modern Versions, we may still most justly point to
these nine Versions, of ages and countries so different
and distant, as evincing an unanimity in their render-
ings, not only of general but even of disputed passages,
far beyond what could have been expected a priori, or
can in any way be accounted for by the admissions we
have already made. If it be said this must necessarily
be the case in Versions which are all strictly literal in
their character, these two remarks may be made by
way of rejoinder : first, that the very fact that nine
Versions of different ages and countries should agree in
this important feature, that not one of them should in
any respect be paraphrastic,* and that some, as for in-
stance the Old Latin, should almost be barbarous in
their exactness, does seem to show that not only in later
ages, but even in the earliest, the very letter of Scrip-
ture was regarded as of the utmost importance, and
treated with the most scrupulous accuracy. Where
Versions were so punctilious, it does not seem natural
to expect that interpretation would have been very wild
or varied, except when it was allowed to degenerate
into applications, or busied itself with minutiae and de-
tails. Secondly, it may be added, that even the most
literal Versions involve interpretation in the fullest
sense of the word, especially in the opinions they neces-
sarily express on the connexion of clauses, and in the
renderings of words of disputed meaning. A good

* It may be noticed that we have specified the Ethiopic Version as that
edited by Mr. Pell Piatt. The Ethiopic found in Walton's < Polyglott' often
degenerates into a paraphrase, especially in difficult passages. The Peshito
is sometimes idiomatically free, but never paraphrastic.

438 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

translation is often the very best of commentaries, and
it was a full appreciation of this fact that led a ven-
erated scholar and divine, when asked what he judged
to be the best commentary on the New Testament, to
name the Vulgate. The general unanimity of the early
as well as later Versions is thus a testimony, at any
rate, of some little weight, in favour of the belief that
the amount and degree of differences of interpretation
in earlier, when compared with later ages, have been
much overstated.

Still it may be urged, that whatever may be the
case with Versions, it is perfectly certain that, in the
results at which commentators of different ages have
arrived, there is a vast amount not only of variety but
of antagonism. In reference to a certain number of
difficult passages this may be true ; if, however, this be
intended as a general statement referring to Scriptural
interpretation at large, it must be regarded as open to
considerable doubt. Let us endeavour to show this in
the following way. It is said that there is an increas-
ing agreement between recent German expositors, and
it is also implied that the results at which they have
arrived are far more consonant with truth than any that
have preceded. Of these expositors, De "Wette and
Meyer are often mentioned with respect by modern
writers. Let us agree to take them as two fair repre-
sentatives of the exegesis of our own times. Let us
now go to a remote past, and choose two names to com-
pare with them as representatives of the interpretation
of a former day. Let us take for example Chrysostom
and Theodoret. They belonged to an age sufficiently
distant ; they shared in its feelings and sympathies ;
they took part in its controversies. They were not
specially in advance of their own times. One of them
had, what many will judge to be not always compatible
with calmness of interpretation, a strongly rhetorical
bias ; the other dfd not escape some suspicion of heresy.
Such as they were, or have been judged to be, let us
compare them, in some portion of Scripture (St. Paul's
Epistles for example), on which all have written, with

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 4gg

the two modern commentators above specified, and
state what seem to be the general results of the com-
parison. We naturally set out with the expectation of
rinding very great diversity. If all that has been said
on this subject be true; if the fourteen centuries which
lie between the two pairs of men be as plentifully
diversified as they are said to have been by changes in
methods of interpretation, — changes, too, asserted to
have been gradually leading us up to more perfect
principles of interpretation, — we must expect to find a
very great amount of discordance between them. Yet
what do we discover when we actually institute the
comparison ? To speak very generally, it would seem
to be as follows. There wTill be found in the first place
a considerable amount of variety in matters of detail,
the older interpreters more commonly giving what may
be termed an objective reference to words and expres-
sions, where the two modern writers will be found
agreeing to adopt a more subjective view. In the sec-
ond place, differences will be observed in the treatment
of doctrinal passages; the older interpreters usually
expounding them with reference to the great contro-
versies of their own times, and to points of polemical
detail ; the modern interpreters usually trying to gen-
eralize, and not unfrequently to dilute and explain
away, whenever doctrinal statements appear to assume
a very distinctive . or definite aspect. In a word, the
tendency of the two earlier writers is to what is objec-
tive and special ; of the two later to what is subjective
and general. These distinctions will certainly be ob-
served, especially in the two departments above alluded
to — matters of detail and matters of doctrine, and may
perhaps be deemed sufficient to justify the recognition
of some clear lines of demarcation between earlier and
more modern interpretation. "When, however, these
points of difference are set aside, there will be found
remaining in the great bulk of Scripture, and in all
general passages, an amount of accordance so striking
and so persistent, that it can only be accounted for by
the assumption that these four able expositors all in-

440

AIDS TO FAITH". [Essay IX.

stinctively recognized one common and sound principle
of Scriptural interpretation. The precise nature of that
principle will become apparent as we advance further
in our investigations.

4. Believing that these remarks are just, and capa-
ble of being fully substantiated, we may claim to have
at least made it probable, that the extent of the alleged
differences in the interpretation of Scripture between
our own times and the past has been unduly exagger-
ated. Here we might pause as far as the present por-
tion of our subject is concerned. It may be well, how-
ever, to take one step farther, and show, what fairly
can be shown, that from the very earliest times, the
literal and historical method of interpreting Scripture,
now so often claimed as the distinguishing character-
istic of our own times, has ever been recognized in the
Church as the true method on man's side of interpret-
ing the Oracles of God. On this subject, owing to the
small amount of exact knowledge, even among more
professed students, and to the currency which a few
popular comments readily obtain among those whose
acquaintance with these ancient writers must ever be
second-hand, many questionable statements are allowed
to pass unchallenged. It would, perhaps, seem hope-
less to attempt to say one word in favour of the method
of interpretation adopted by Origen. Every writer of
the day uses that great name to illustrate what is to be
regarded as wild and fanciful. And yet, what is the
opinion which any real student of Origen's exegetical
works would certainly give us ? What, foi* instance,
would be the statement of an unbiassed scholar who
had thoughtfully read what remain to us of his com-
mentaries on St. Matthew and St. John ? Would he
not tell us that in these portions of his works, whatever
may have been his theories elsewhere, Origen rarely
failed to give the first place to the simple and literal
interpretation, and that his divergencies into allegory
far more often deserve the name of applications than
of actual expositions ? Allegory seems really and pri-
marily to have commended itself to Origen as the

Essay IX.] SCMPTURE, AND ITS INTEErEETATION. 44}

readiest method of dealing with those difficulties which
his acute mind almost too quickly recognized as tran-
scending human reason and explanation. The remark
of one who has carefully read and well used one por-
tion of his works — the expositor Liicke — is probably
not wholly unjust, that a tendency to rationalize, of
which Origen himself was unconscious, may to a great
degree account for his bias to allegory and mystical
modes of interpretation, whenever the difficulties of the
passage seemed to rise above the usual level. Where
there was no necessity for this, where there were no
historical details which seemed at issue with human
reason, or with received views of morality and justice,
Origen shows plainly enough what method of inter-
preting the "Word, of God he deemed to be the true and
correct one. We may abundantly verify this from his
extant writings. We may also further judge from frag-
ments preserved in Catena? (his scattered comments,
for example, on the Epistle to the Ephesians) what
were really his leading principles ; and we may fairly
ask if they were so very different from the principles
of interpreting Scripture which all parties, friends and
foes, seem now in the main agreed in regarding as
reasonable and correct.

We might extend these remarks almost indefinitely
by discussing the true nature of the leading methods
of interpreting Scripture — these methods which we are
told are so strangely discordant — in the case of each
one of the more distinguished expositors of different
ages of the Church. We might show, for instance,
that no amount of strong polemical bias prevented
Cyril of Alexandria from expounding portions of Scrip-
ture (the Gospel of St. John for example) with what,
even in our own critical days, must be called felicity
and success. We might make it clear that the rhetor-
ical turn of Chrysostom's mind never prevented him
from fully discussing verbal distinctions, analysing the
meanings of prepositions, estimating the force of com-
pound forms, and so placing before his reader as calm,
clear, and persuasive a view of the passage under con-
19*

442 A1DS TO FAITH. [Essay IX

sideration as we may find in the best specimens of
modern interpretation. We might turn to the West,
and in spite of some growing disposition to admit
more generally those studied distinctions in reference
to threefold or fourfold senses of Scripture which Ori-
gen bequeathed to his successors, we might still appeal
to Augustine as a writer, whose special interpretations
can never be spoken of without respect, and whose
perceptions of the inner mind of Scripture, and of the
true bearing of its deeper declarations, remain to this
very hour unequalled for their perspicuity and truth.
Kay, we might even show that the studied recognition
of several senses in Scripture was rather a form of ex-
plication than of definite and genuine interpretation.
We might even go onward, and pass into those ages
which have become very bywords for perverted inter-
pretation of Scripture — the ages of the earlier and later
schoolmen — and even in them, amid subtile and narrow
logic on this side, and a wild and speculative idealism
on that, we should have no difficulty in showing that
there was a via media of sound principles of interpreta-
tion which was both recognized and proceeded on. It
is perfectly true that at this period not only the earlier
threefold and fourfold senses of Scripture were re-as-
serted and re-applied, but that even sevenfold, eight-
fold,* and, if we choose to press the words of Erigena,
infinite senses of Scripture were admitted by mediaeval
interpreters ; but it is also perfectly true and demon-
strable, from passing comments and cautions, that the
simple, plain, and literal sense was always admitted to
be the basis, and that other forms of interpretation
were commonly regarded more in the light of deduc-
tions and applications. The rule laid down by Aqui-
nas was clear enough, and expresses fairly the general
feeling of the interpreters of his own time, — " In omni-

* The enumeration may amuse the reader : (1) Sensus literalis vel his-
toricus ; (2) allegoricus vel parabolicus ; (3) tropologicus vel etymologicus ;
(4) anagogicus vel analogicus ; (5) typicus vel exemplaris ; (6) anaphoricus
vel proportionalis ; (7) boarcademicus vel primordialis {i.e. quo ipsa principia
rerum comparantur cum beatitudine seterna et tota dispeusatione salutis) ;
see Bibl. Max. Pair. torn. xvii. p. 315 seq. (Lugd 1677).

EssatIX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 443

bus quse Scriptura tradit, pro fundamento est tenenda
Veritas liistorica, et desuper spirituales expositiones
fabricandae " (Swmma Theol. Pars. 1, Qu. 102, Art. 1) :
the literal and historical came first, the rest were forms
of application. It is not, however, merely from pass-
ing comments, or from asserted, but really neglected
principles, but from the general tenor of the better ex-
positions of the time that the full force of the above
remarks will best be felt. Let a fair and intelligent
reader consent to give a little time to some of the in-
terpretations of difficult passages in St. Paul's Epistles
as put forward by Lombard or Aquinas, and then tell
us his impressions. We will venture to state what his
report would be, — that it wTas a matter of surprise to
him, in an age which has ever been a very byword for
subtilties and pedantry, to find such a large amount of
reasonable and intelligent interpretation of the Word
of God.

5. To gather up, then, our preceding comments,
may we not fairly say, — -first, that much that has been
said about the extent and variety of interpretations of
Scripture is exaggerated ; secondly, that even the va-
rious methods of interpretation — which, when it serves
a purpose, our opponents regard as meaning the same
as the results arrived at — may in many, perhaps most,
cases be regarded as modes of applying or expanding
the primary sense, rather than of eliciting substantive
and independent meanings ; thirdly, not only that God
has never left Himself without a witness, and that in
every age there have been a few faithful representa-
tives of faithful principles of interpretation, but fur-
ther, that there has been from the very earliest times,
not only in theory but in practice, a plain, literal, and
historical mode of interpreting Scripture ; and finally,
that there may be, traced so great an identity in the re-
sults arrived at by successive interpreters, that we have
full warrant for using the term Catholic in reference to
a far larger portion of what may be considered current
orthodox interpretations than the mere popular dis-
putant is at all aware of? Let the inquiry be put

444 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

with all simplicity to those, whether in this country or
abroad, who have made Ancient Versions and exposi-
tors their study, and, however different their opinions
may be on other points, on this they will be agreed, —
that there is such a concordia discors in the results ob-
tained, that in very many passages we can produce in-
terpretations which may stand even the test of Yincent
of Lerins, and may justly be termed the traditional in-
terpretations of the Church of Christ.

We know, of course, how these statements both
have been and will be disposed of by the impatient and
the confident. It will be said, probably, that granting
merely for the sake of argument, that there is that
species of concord of interpretation in many important
passages, it has been only the result of traditional prej-
udices from which it is now our duty to make our-
selves free. It will be added that any form of such
consent is in itself suspicious, and that if our intuitions
run counter to it we are at once tp listen to the voice
of reason within us, and reject the interpretation of
every Church and every age of the world, if it does not
approve itself to our own convictions. Brave and
buoyant in our own self-esteem, we shall perhaps never
pause to ask how far the so-called voice of reason may
not be the voice of prejudice, — how far convictions may
not be merely the results of secret influences within,
and of some half-consciousness that what we reject
bears aspects or involves conclusions sadly at variance
with our habits or our propensions. We may at last
perceive that it is the Word of God in its dreaded func-
tion of searching the intents of the heart that is now
being brought home to us, and in our very dismay and
perplexity we may have felt forced to come to the de-
termination that every interpretation, be it of Church'
or of Council, that makes us thus tremble for ourselves,
both must be and shall be either rejected or ignored.
Thus, perhaps, will all that has been urged be disposed
of. Be it so. There is a proud and confident spirit
abroad ; there is a love of self, self in its more purely
intellectual aspects, above measure painful and revolt-

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 445

ing ; there are forms bearing the names of moral good-
ness and freedom, and yet involving the denial of the
essence of both, that bring an Apostle's predictions
sadly and strangely to our thoughts, — and we feel it
must be so, and that there are some whose ears must
be and will be turned away from the truth. Yet there
are others — especially the young, the ardent, the inex-
perienced— to whom what has been thus far urged may
not have been urged in vain. To them our arguments
are mainly addressed, to them we are speaking, for
them we are pleading. "Young man, true in heart
and earnest in spirit, honest searcher, anxious yet
prayerful inquirer, let not thy eyes be holden by proud,
unkindly hands, judge for thyself. Believe not every
one that tells thee that the records of the Church are
scribbled over with every form of strange, idle, and
conventional interpretation of the Word of God. Judge
for thyself, but judge righteous judgment. If there be
fuller concords in the voices of the past than thou hast
believed, close not thine ears to them because as yet
they sound not fully harmonious to thee. Wait, ponder,
pray : ere long, perchance thine own voice will spon-
taneously blend with what thou nearest ; thou thyself,
by the grace of God, may at length hear sounding
round thee, and by thine own experience make others
hear with thee, the holy accords and harmonies of the
deep things of the Word of God."

6. We now pass naturally onward to another por-
tion, or rather to another, and that at first sight an op-
posed, aspect of our present subject. Hitherto we have
shown not only that the amount of the differences of
interpretation has been clearly over-estimated, but even
that the true and honest method of interpreting the
Word of God — the literal, historical, and grammatical
— has been recognized in every age, and that the re-
sults are to be seen in the agreement on numberless
passages of importance that may be found in expositors

44g AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

of all periods ; in other words, that the illuminating
grace of God has ever been with His Church. This
beino- so, it is but waste of time to consider the cause's
that have been alleged for the existence of the multi-
tude of interpretations, when that multitude has been
proved to a great extent to be imaginary. We will not,
then, pause to discuss the amount of varying interpreta-
tions that have been ascribed, wdiether, on the one
hand, to rhetoric and desires to edify, or, on the other,
to party feeling and efforts to wrest the meanings of
Scripture to different sides. We deny not that both
have produced some effect on the interpretation of
Scripture. We do not deny that the Christian preacher
may have often urged meanings that do not lie in the
words, and that these may have been adopted by con-
temporaries and echoed and reproduced by those that
have followed. We deny not, again, that the natural
meaning of many texts may have been perverted by
prejudice on one side or other, and that traces of this
may still remain in some of the current interpretations
of our own times. All this we deny not, but, on the
other hand, wTe. confidently assert that the effects have
been limited, and that all the assumptions that the
contrary has been the case fall with the fallen assump-
tion, viz., that the discordance of Scripture interpreta-
tions is excessive, and that all methods hitherto adopted
have been uncertain or untrustworthy.

But we now come to what at first sight may appear
a reversed aspect of our subject. While, on the one
hand, we consider it proved that there has been from
the first a substantial agreement, not only in the mode
of interpreting Scripture, but in many of its most im-
portant details, we are equally prepared, on the other
hand, to recognize the existence of great differences of
opinion about the meanings of individual passages, and
even in reference to the methods by which these mean-
ings may be best obtained. No one who has had any
experience in the interpretation of Scripture can with
honesty assert the contrary. It may be true that in the
great majority of all the more important passages care-

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 447

ful consideration will show that what logic, grammar,
and a proper valuation of the significance of words,
seem to indicate as the principal and primary meaning
of the passage, will be found to have been recognized
as such ages before, and has substantially held its
ground to our own times, — still experience teaches us
that there is a very large residuum of less important
passages in which interpreters break up into groups,
and in which the expositor of the nineteenth century
has to yield to the guidance of principles perhaps but
recently recognized, yet, from their justice and truth,
of an influence and authority that cannot be gainsaid.
There are, indeed, even a few cases, but confessedly
unimportant, where the modern interpreter has to op-
pose himself to every early Version and every patristic
commentator, and where it is almost certain he is right
in so doing. Let the connexion of the concluding por-
tion of Gal. iv. 12 be cited as an example. Such in-
stances are, however, very rare, and need hardly be
mentioned, save to show that principles can never be
dispensed with, and that, though we yield all becoming
deference to interpretations in which antiquity is mainly
agreed, we yet by no means pledge ourselves unreserv-
edly to accept them. All these differences, then, in
the interpretations of individual passages, we frankly
recognize; nay more, we may in many cases admit
that there are clearly defined differences in the method
of interpreting — perhaps an extended context. Last
of all, it is not to be suppressed that there is a some-
what large class of passages so far-reaching, so inclu-
sive, and so profound, that not only are all the better
interpretations remarkable for their varied character,
but for their appearing, perhaps each one, to represent
a portion of the true meaning, but scarcely, all of them
together, what our inner soul seems to tell us is the
complete and ultimate meaning of the words that meet
the outward eye.

7. We are thus admitting the existence of diversity
of interpretation, especially in individual passages and
details, as readily and as frankly as we have argued for

448 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

the existence of a far greater prevailing unity both in
the meanings themselves, and the methods of arriving
at them in all more important passages, than is willingly-
recognized by popular writers. The question then na-
turally arises, how do we account for these apparently
reversed aspects? How can we in the same breath
assert prevailing unity, and yet admit diversity ? How
do we account for a state of things which in Sophocles
or Plato would be pronounced incredible or absurd?
Our answer is of a threefold nature. We account for
this by observing, First, that the Bible is different to
every other book in the world, and that its interpreta-
tion may well be supposed to involve many difficulties
and diversities. Secondly, that the words of Scripture
in many parts have more than one meaning and appli-
cation. Thirdly, that Scripture is inspired, and that
though written by man, it is a revelation from God,
and adumbrates His eternal plenitudes and perfections.

On each one of these forms of the answer we will
make a few observations.

I. On the first, perhaps, little more need be said
than has been incidentally brought forward in earlier
parts of this Essay. It is, indeed, most unreasonable
to compare, even in externals, the Bible with any other
book in the world. A collection of many treatises,
written in many different styles, and at many different
ages, can never be put side by side with the works of
a^single author, nor will any canons of interpretation
which may be just and reasonable in the latter case, be
necessarily applicable to the former. What, for in-
stance, can really be more strange than to lay down
the rule that we are to interpret the Scripture like any
other book, when, in the merest rough and outside
view, the Scripture presents such striking differences
from any book that the world has ever seen? The
strangeness becomes greater when we look inward, and
observe the varied nature of the contents, — prose and
poetry, history and prophecy, teachings of an incarnate
God, and exhortations and messages of men to men.
How very unreasonable to insist on similar modes of

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 449

interpreting what our very opponents rightly term " a
world by itself" — a world from which foreign influences
are to be excluded — and any other documents or rec-
ords that have come from the hand of man ! How
can we with justice require that amount of exegetical
agreement in the former case that might naturally be
looked for and demanded in the latter? How very
reasonable, on the other hand, is the supposition that
in the interpretation of a collection of treatises of such
varied and momentous import we may have to recog-
nize both unities and diversities, — unities as due to the
illuminating grace of the one and self-same Spirit
similarly vouchsafed to all meek and holy readers of
Scripture in every age of the Church, — diversities as
due to the profundity and variety that must ever mark
the outpourings of the manifold wisdom of God ! It
seems, indeed, idle to dwell upon what is thus obvious
and self-evident ; but it has been rendered necessary
by what we are obliged to term the unfairness of our
opponents. At one time, when the argument seems to
require it, the Scripture is considered as a single book,
to be dealt with like other books, subject to the same
critical canons, amenable to the same laws of interpre-
tation : at another time it emerges to view as a collec-
tion of records, unconnected and discordant, which it
is desirable to keep thus divided, that they may be the
more readily disposed of ; and, whenever it may seem
necessary, the more successfully pitted against one an-
other in contradictions and antagonisms.

II. We pass onward to our second form of answer.
Here we find ourselves, as might have been foreseen,
in undisguised conflict with the sceptical writers of
our own time. That Scripture has one meaning, and
one meaning only, is their fundamental axiom : it is
seen to be, and felt to be, one of the keys of their posi-
tion. When, however, we pause to ask how that one
meaning is to be defined, we receive answers that are
neither very intelligible nor consistent. If we are told
that it is " that meaning which it had to the mind of
the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote,

450 AlDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

to the hearers or readers who first received the mes-
sage," we may justly protest against an answer involv-
ing alike such assumptions and such ambiguities. What
right have we to assume that the speaker knew the full
meaning which his own words might subsequently be
found to bear ? A very little reflection wTill show the
justice of this query. What right, again, have we to
assume that the meaning which the Prophet or Evan-
gelist designed to convey was identical with that which
the hearers or readers who first received the message
conceived to be conveyed in its words ? Assuming
even that it was so, how are we to arrive at this one
meaning common to hearer and speaker ? How are
wre to recognize it, when the words before us may bear
two or more meanings, each, perhaps, equally probable
and supported by arguments of equal validity? It
will be said that this is precisely the duty of the Inter-
preter ; that it is for him to disengage himself from the
trammels of the present, and free from the bondage of
prejudices and creeds to transport himself back into the
past, to mingle in spirit wTith those who first heard the
words, to feel as they felt, to hear as they heard, to
recover the one, the true, and the original meaning,
and to bring it back to the hearer or reader of our own
times. All this is high-sounding and rhetorical ; it is
sure to attract the young and the enthusiastic, and by
no means ill-calculated to excite and delude the inex-
perienced. Bvrt it is rhetoric, and nothing more. No
one who has had genuine experience in the interpreta-
tion of Scripture would hesitate to pronounce such
" magnifyings of an office " as completely delusive, if
even not deserving the graver term, mischievous.
Delusive they certainly are, because all this self-pro-
jection into the past is in reality, and ever has been,
unostentatiously practised by all better interpreters —
by all wTho have sought with humility and earnestness
to catch the spirit and mind of the writer whom they
are striving to expound. All this has been practised,
almost from the first. Chrysostom spoke of it, Augus-
tine commended it, and yet what has been the result

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 45}

of experience ? Why, that passage after passage has
been found to be so pregnant with meaning, so mys-
teriously full, so comprehensively applicable, that the
most self-confident interpreter in the world could
scarcely be brought to declare his complete conviction
that the one view out of many which he may have
adopted was certainly the principal one, much less that
it was the only meaning of the words before him.

But to give up such attitudes of delusive self-con-
fidence, and to return to modesty and reason, we may
now proceed to illustrate our first assertion, that Scrip-
ture has frequently more than one meaning, by refer-
ences to three particulars in which this is very clear-
ly exemplified, — double meanings, or applications of
prophecy, types, and deeper senses of simple histor-
ical statements. A few remarks shall be made on each.

(1.) On the first so much has been said of late that
it might almost seem pure knight-errantry to undertake
the advocacy of what (we are told) ought now to be re-
garded as a mere outworn prejudice. And yet what is
more thoroughly consonant with reason, and, we might
almost add, experience, than such a belief? We say
experience, — for there must be few calm observers of
the course of events around them who can fail to have
been struck with the curious re-appearance, under un-
likely circumstances, of former combinations, and who
have not occasionally been almost startled by the re-
currence of incidents in relations and connexions that
could never have been reasonably expected again. It
does not seem too much to say that in many instances
nations and individuals alike seem moving as it were
in spirals, constantly returning, not exactly to the same
point, but to the same bearings and the same aspects, —
not precisely to a former past, but to a present that
bears to it a very strange and wholly unlooked-for
resemblance. If this be true in many things that fall
under our own immediate observation (and very unob-
servant must he be who has not often verified it for
himself), if we often seem to ourselves to recognize this
principle of events becoming in many respects doubles

452 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

of each other, and that not only in minor matters, but
even in circumstances of some historical importance, —
if this be so, is it strange that in the spiritual history
of our race there should be such parallelisms ; that
words apparently spoken in reference to a precursory
series of events should be found to refer with equal
pertinence to some mysteriously similar combinations
that appeared long afterwards ? Are we to think that
counsels sealed in silence from eternity, that purposes
of the ages formed before the worlds were made, that
dispensations of love and mercy laid out even before
the objects for whom they were designed had come
into being, were not over and over again reflected, as
it were, in the history of our race, and that the events
of a former day were not often bound in mystical like-
nesses and affinities with the events of the future by
that principle of redeeming love which permeated and
pervaded all ? Unless we are prepared plainly to
adopt some of the bleakest theories of the scepticism
of these later days ; unless we are determined to find
civilization and development and not God in history ;
unless we have resolved to see in the Gospel no fore-
ordered dispensation, but only a system of morality,
unannounced, unforeshadowed, as strange in its isolated
and exceptional character as it has been strange in its
effects, — then, and then only, can we consistently deny
the likelihood and probability of God's purposes to the
world having imparted to events seemingly remote and
unconnected, and to issues brought about by varied
and dissimilar circumstances, real and spiritual resem-
blances. Then only can we justly deny that the word
of prophecy might truly, legitimately, and consistently
be considered to refer as well to earlier as to later
events, wherever such resemblances could be reason-
ably demonstrated to exist.

To illustrate the foregoing comments by an exam-
ple, let us take an instance which our opponents are
never wearied with bringing forward, — our Lord's
prophecy relative to the fate of Jerusalem and the end
of the world. Here it is said that the system of first

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 453

and second meanings, which we are now defending, is
most palpably nothing whatever else than an attempt
to help out the verification and mitigate the incohe-
rence of a somewhat confused and partially unrealized
prophecy. Now, in disposing of this idle but painfully
familiar comment, we will make no allusion to the ques-
tion of the four Apostles, which, it may be observed,
necessitated in the answer reference to the end of the
world as well as to the end of the Theocracy (Matt.
xxiv. 3) ; we will only take the prophecy as we find it,
with its mingled allusions to a near and to a remote
future, and simply inquire whether there is any such
resemblance, spiritual or otherwise, as might make ex-
pressions used in reference to the one almost inter-
changeably applicable to the other. Who can doubt
what the answer must be ? Who that takes into con-
sideration the true significance of the fall of Jerusalem,
who that sees in it, as every sober reader must see, not
merely the fall of an ancient city, but the destruction
of the visible seat of Jehovah's worship, the enforced
cessation of the ancient order of things, the practical
abrogation of the Theocracy, — all closely synchronous
with the Lord's first coming, — who is there that will
take all these things fairly into consideration and not
be ready to acknowledge resemblances between the
end of the fated city and the issues of the present dis-
pensation, sufficiently mysterious and sufficiently pro-
found to warrant our even alternating between them
(we use the studiedly exaggerated language of oppo-
nents) the verses of the Lord's great prophecy ? Till it
can be shown that the course of things is fortuitous,
that providential dispensations are a dream, and the
gradual development of the counsels of God a conven-
ient fiction — till it can be made clear to demonstration,
that there are no profound harmonies in the Divine
government, no mystical recurrences of foreordered
combinations, no spiritual affinities between the past
and the present, no foreseen resemblances in epochal
events, and no predestined counterparts, the ground on
which the reasonable belief in double meanings and

454 A1DS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

double applications of prophecy has been rightly
judged to rest will remain stable and unshaken; the
perspective character that has been attributed to Scrip-
tural predictions will still claim to be considered no
idle or unreal imagination.

(2.) The subject of types has been much dwelt upon
by modern writers, and in most cases with singular un-
fairness. The popular mode of arguing on this subject
is to select some instances from early Christian writers
which are obviously fanciful and untenable, to hold up
the skirts of their folly, to display their utter nakedness,
and then to ask if a system of which these are examples
either can or ought to be regarded with any degree of
favour or confidence. If Justin tells us that the king of
Assyria signified Herod, and Jerome was of opinion
that by Chaldoeans are meant Demons, if the scarlet
thread of Rahab has been deemed to have a hidden
meaning, and the number of Abraham's followers has
been regarded as not wholly without significance, we
are asked whether we can deem the whole system
otherwise than precarious and extravagant, whether we
can at all safely attribute to the details of the Mosaic
ritual a reference to the ISTew Testament, or really be-
lieve that the passage of the Red Sea can be very cer-
tainly considered a type of baptism. The ultimate de-
sign of this mode of arguing will not escape the intelli-
gent reader ; — it is simply an endeavour by slow sap
to weaken the authority of some of the writers of the
New Testament, and to leave it to be inferred that our
Lord Himself, in recognizing and even giving sanction
to such applications of Scripture (Matt. xii. 40, John
iii. 14 ; comp. ch. vi. 5S), either condescended to adopt
forms of illustration which He must have felt to be un-
trustworthy, or else really in this did not rise wholly
above the culture of His own times. Isow at present,
without at all desiring to press what we have not yet
discussed — the inspiration of Scripture — we do very
earnestly call upon those who are not yet prepared
wholly to fling off their allegiance to Scripture, to bear
in mind the following facts : — («) That our Blessed

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 455

Lord Himself referred to the Brazen Serpent as typical
of His being raised aloft, and that He illustrated the
mystery of His own abode in the chambers of the earth
by an event of the past which He Himself was pleased
to denominate as a sign, — the only sign that wTas to be
vouchsafed to the generation that then was seeking for
one ; (b) that the Evangelists recognize the existence
and significance of types in reference to our Lord (Matt,
ii. 15 ; John xix. 36); (<?) that the teaching of St. Paul
is pervaded by references to this form of what has been
termed "acted prophecies" (Rom. v. 14 seq. ; 1 Cor. v.
7, x. 2 seq. ; Gal. iv. 24 seq. ; Col. ii. 11) ; (d) that the
greater part of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one con-
tinued elucidation of the spiritual significance of the
principal features of the Levitical law: its sacrifices,
rites, and priests were all the shadows and typical re-
semblances of good things to come (Heb. x. 1) ; (e) that
St. Peter plainly and distinctly declares that the water
of the Flood is typical of baptism (1 Pet. iii. 21) ; (f)
that in the last and most mysterious revelation of God
to man the very realms of blessedness and glory are
designated by a name and specified by allusions (Rev.
xxi. 22) which warrant our recognizing in the Holy
City on earth, the " Jerusalem that now is," a type of
that Heavenly City which God hath prepared for the
faithful (Heb. xi. 16), a similitude of the Jerusalem that
is above, a shadow of the incorruptible inheritance of
the servants and children of God.

When we dwell calmly upon these things, wdien we
observe further how, not only thus directly and explic-
itly, but how, also, indirectly and by allusion, nearly
every writer in the New Testament bears witness to
the existence and significance of types, how it tinges
their language of consolation (Rev. xxi. 2 seq.), and
gives force to their exhortations (Heb. iv. 14) ; when
we finally note how the very Eternal Spirit of God, by
whom they were inspired, is specially declared to have
vouchsafed thus to involve in the ceremonies of the
past the deep truths of the future (Heb. ix. 8), — when
we calmly consider the cumulative force of all these

456 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

examples and all these testimonies, we may perhaps
be induced to pause before we adopt the sweeping
statements that have been made in reference to the
whole system of typology. We may admit that types
may have been often injudiciously applied, that it may
be difficult to fix bounds to their use or to specify the
measure of their aptitude, and yet we may indeed se-
riously ask for time to consider whether such recogni-
tions of the deeper meanings of Scripture thus vouch-
safed to us, and thus sanctioned by our Lord and His
Apostles, are to be given up at once because they are
thought to come in collision with modern views of
Scripture and modern canons of interpretation. Our
opponents may well be anxious to get rid of the whole
system of types ; we can understand their anxiety, we
can even find reasons for the sort of desperation that
scruples not to represent what was once sanctioned by
our Lord and His Apostles as now either mischievous
or inapplicable. It is felt that if typology is admitted,
the assertion that Scripture has but one meaning is in-
validated. It is seen clearly enough that if it can be
shown, within any reasonable degree of probability,
that the details of a past dispensation were regarded
by the first teachers of Christianity as veritable types
and symbols of things that had now come, then the re-
cognition of further and deeper meanings in Scripture,
of secondary senses and ultimate significations, must
directly and inevitably follow, and the rule that the
Bible is to be interpreted like any other book at once
be shown to be, what it certainly is, inapplicable. ISTeed
we wonder then that every effort has been made to de-
nounce a system so obstructive to modern innovations ;
need we be surprised that the rejection of what is thus
accredited has been as persistent as it would now seem
proved to be both unreasonable and without success ?

(3.) Our third subject for consideration, the existence
of deeper meanings in Scripture, even in what might
seem simple historical statements, follows very natural-
ly after what has been just discussed. Here again we
can adopt no more convincing mode of demonstration

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 457

than is supplied by an appeal to Scripture. Yet we
may not unprofitably make one or two preliminary
comments. In the first place, is not this assertion of a
oneness of meaning in the written words of an intelli-
gent author open to some discussion ? Is it at all clear,
even in the case of uninspired writers, that the primary
and literal meaning is the only meaning which is to he
recognized in their words ? Is it so wholly inconceiv-
able that more meanings than one may have been actu-
ally designed at the time of writing, and that, conjoint-
ly with a leading and primary meaning, a secondary
and subordinate meaning may have been felt, recog-
nized, and intended? iSVv, can we be perfectly cer-
tain that even words may not have been specially or
instinctively chosen which should leave this secondary
meaning fairly distinct and fairly recognizable? It
would not be difficult to substantiate the justice of
these queries by actual examples from, the writings of
any of the greater authors whether of our own or some
other country. Still less difficult would it be to show
that in very many passages meanings must certainly be
admitted which it may be probable were not intended
by the writer, but which nevertheless by their force and
pertinence make it frequently doubtful whether what
has been assumed to be the primary meaning of the
words is really to be deemed so, and whether what is
judged to be an application may not really represent
the truest aspects of the mind and intentions of the
author.

Let us add this second remark, that the instances
in which words have been found to involve meanings,
not recognized at the time by reader or by writer, but
which after-circumstances have shown were really to
be regarded as meanings, are by no means few or ex-
ceptional. The whole group of illustrations supplied
by " ominata verba," the whole class of cases which
belong to that sort of unconscious prescience which is
often "found in minds of higher strain, the various in-
stances where glimpses of yet undiscovered relations
have given a tinge to expressions which will only be
20

458

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX

fully understood and realized when those relations are
themselves fully known, — all these things, and many-
more than these, might be adduced as illustrative of
the deeper meanings that are often found to lie in the
words of mere uninspired men. Such meanings neither
they nor their own contemporaries may have distinctly
recognized, but meanings they are notwithstanding ;
not merely applications or extensions, but meanings
in the simple and regular acceptation of the term.
How this is to be accounted for, wTe are not called upon
to show. We will not speculate howT far the great and
the good of every age and nation may have been moved
by the inworking Spirit of God to declare truths of
wider application than they themselves may have felt
or realized ; we will not seek to estimate the varying
degrees of that power of partially foreseeing future
relations which long and patient study of the past and
the present has sometimes been found to impart. All
such things are probably beyond our grasp, and would
most likely be found to elude our present powers and
present means of appreciation. With reasons we will
not embarrass ourselves ; we will be satisfied with sim-
ply calling attention to the fact that the existence of
such phenomena as that of wTords having deeper and
fuller meanings than they were understood to have at
first is not only not to be denied, but may even be
deemed matter of something more than occasional ex-
perience.

The two foregoing observations will, perhaps, have
in some measure prepared us for forming a more just
estimate of the further and second meanings that have
been attributed to the wTords of Scripture. If it be
admitted that some of the phenomena to which we have
alluded are occasionally to be recognized in purely
human writings, is it altogether strange that in a reve-
lation from God the same should exist in fuller measures,
and under still clearer aspects ? If the many-sidedness,
mobility, and varied powers of combination existing
in the human mind, appear at times to invest words
written or spoken with a significance of a fuller and

Essay IX.] SCE1PTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 459

deeper kind than may at first be recognized, are ye to
be surprised if something similar in kind, but higher
in degree, is to be observed in the language of Holy
Scripture ? Is the Divine mind not to have influences
which are conceded to the human ? Are the words
of Prophets or Evangelists to be less pregnant in mean-
ing, or more circumscribed in their applications, than
those of poets and philosophers? Without assuming
one attribute in the Scripture beyond what all our
more reasonable opponents would be willing to concede,
without claiming more for it than to be considered a
revelation from God, a communication from the Divine
mind to the minds and hearts of men, we may Justly
claim some hearing for this form of the d priori argu-
ment ; we may with reason ask all fair disputants whether
they are prepared positively to deny, in the case of a
communication directly or even indirectly from God,
the probability of our rinding there some enhancement
of the higher characteristics and more remarkable phe-
nomena that have been recognized in communications of
man to men ?

"When we leave these a priori considerations, and
turn to definite examples and illustrations, our antici-
pations cannot be said to have disappointed us. "We
have really an affluence of examples of second and
deeper meanings being deliberately assigned to pas-
sages of Scripture that might have been otherwise
deemed to have only the one simple or historical mean-
ing that seems first to present itself. Let us select two
orthree instances. Is it possible to deny that our Lord
Himself discloses, in what might have been deemed a
mere title of Jehovah under His aspects of relation to
favoured worshippers, a meaning so full and so deep
that it formed the basis of an argument (Matt. xxii. 31
seq. ; Mark xii. 24 seq. ; Luke xx. 37 sea) \ The famil-
iar titular designation is shown to be the vehicle of a
spiritual truth of the widest application ; the apparently
mere recapitulation of the names of a son, a father, and
a grandfather, in connexion with the God whose ser-
vants they were, and whom they worshipped, is not

4G0 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

only urged as proving a fund am cut al doctrine, but is
tacitly acknowledged to Lave done so by gainsay ers
and opponents (Luke xx. 39). And further, let it be
observed, that it is clearly implied that this was no
deeply-hidden meaning, no profound interpretation,
which it might require a special revelation to disclose,
but that it was a meaning which really ought to have
been recognized by a deeper reader, — at any rate that
not to have done so argued as plain an ignorance of
the "Written Word as it did of the power and opera-
tions of God (Matt. xxii. 29). Let this really " preroga-
tive " example be fairly considered and properly esti-
mated, and then let it be asked if the existence of deeper
meanings in Scripture can consistently be denied by
any who profess a belief in our Lord Jesus Christ. It
seems to us that this is a plain case of a dilemma :
either with Strauss and Hase we must regard the argu-
ment as an example of Babbinieal sophistry, — and so,
as Meyer reminds us, be prepared to sacrifice the char-
acter and dignity of our Lord, — or we must admit that,
in some cases at least, there is more in Scripture than
the mere literal sense of the words.

Such an example opens the way for the introduction
of others, which, without this prerogative instance, could
not have been strongly urged, except on assunrptions
which, in our present position in the argument, it would
not be logically consistent to make. By being associ-
ated, however, with the present examine, they certainly
seem to be of some force and validity in confirming our
present assertion, and, to say the very least, can be
more easily explained on that hypothesis than on any
other that has yet been assigned. Let us specify Matt,
ii. 15. [Now the question presents itself in the follow-
ing form : — Is not this an example furnished by the
Apostle of what we have already seen must be recog-
nized in an example vouchsafed by his Lord ? Is not
this a case of deeper meaning ? Do not the words of
Ilosea, the second meaning of which was doubtless not
more apparent even to the prophet himself than it was
to his earlier readers, seem only to have a simple his-

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 4(3 1

torical reference to the earthly Israel ? and yet do they
not really involve, a further and typical reference to
Him who was truly and essentially what Israel was gra-
ciously denominated (Exod. iv. 22 ; comp. Jerem. xxxi.
9), and of whom Israel was a type and a shadow % So,
at any rate, St. Matthew plainly asserts. Which, then,
of these hypotheses do we think most probable, — that
St. Matthew erroneously ascribed a meaning to words
which they do not and were not intended to bear, that
the two chapters are an interpolation (for such an hypo-
thesis has been advanced), or that they supply an in-
stance of a second and typical meaning in words of a
simply historical aspect, and that a truth is here disclosed
by an Apostle similar to what we have already seen
has been clearly disclosed by our Lord ?

Let us take yet another, and that, as it might be
thought, a very hopeless instance. St. Paul, in his
Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. iv. 8), not only makes a
citation from a Psalm, which at the part in question
appears to have a simple historical reference to some
event of the time (perhaps the taking of Kabbah), but
even alters the words of the original, so as to make its
application to our Lord more pertinent and telling.
What are we to say of such a case ? Does it not really
look like an instance of almost unwarrantable accom-
modation ? Does it not seem as if we had now fairly
fallen upon the point of our own sword, and that, in
citing an example of a second meaning, we had unwit-
tingly selected one in which the very alteration shows
that the words did not originally have the meaning now
attributed to them ? Before we thus yield, let us at
any rate state the case, and leave the fair reader to form
his own opinion. Without at present assuming the
existence of any influence which would have directly
prevented the Apostle from so seriously misunder-
standing and so gravely misapplying a passage of the
Old Testament, and only assuming it as proved that
there is one authentic instance of words of Scripture
bearing a further meaning than meets the eye, we now
ask which is to be judged as most likely : that the

462

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

Apostle to substantiate a statement, which could have
been easily substantiated by other passages, deliberately
altered a portion of Scripture which had no reference
to the matter before him, or that he rightly assigned
to a seemingly historical passage from a Psalm, which
(be it observed), in its original scope, has every appear-
ance of being prophetic and Messianic, a deeper mean-
ing than the words seem to bear (such a meaning being
in one case, at least, admitted to exist), and that he
altered the form of the words to make more palpable
and evident the meaning which he knew they involved ?
AVe have no anxiety as to the decision in the case of

any calm-judging and unbiassed reader One

further remark we may make in conclusion, and it is
a remark of some little importance, viz., that if the
present instance be deemed an example of Scripture
having a second and deeper, as well as a first and more
simple meaning, it must also be regarded as an exam-
ple of an authoritative change in the exact words of a
quotation, — the change being designed to bring up the
underlying meaning which was known to exist, and to
place it with more distinctness before the mind of the
general reader.

III. Having thus, as it would seem, substantiated
our assertion that deeper meanings lie in Scripture
than appear on the surface, and that this may be
properly considered as in part accounting for the
existence of some of those difficulties and diversities
which are met with in Scripture interpretation, we now
pass to the third assertion relative to the subject, viz.,
that Scripture is divinely inspired.

Here we enter upon a wide subject, which may
with reason claim for itself a separate and independent
essay, and which certainly ought fully to be disposed of
before any rules bearing upon interpretation can prop-
erly be laid down. As a longer discussion of this subject
will be found in another portion of our volume, we
will here only make a very few general remarks upon
inspiration as immediately bearing upon interpretation,
and more especially upon the estimate formed of its

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUBE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 4(33

nature and extent by the advocates of the system of
Scriptural exegesis now under our consideration.

In the outset, let it be said that we heartily concur
with the majority of our opponents in rejecting all
theories of inspiration, and in sweeping aside all those
distinctions and definitions which, only in too many
cases, have been merely called forth by emergencies,
and drawn up for no other purpose than to meet real
and supposed difficulties. The remark probably is
just, that most of the current explanations err more
especially in attempting to define what, though real,
is incapable of being defined in an exact manner.
Hence all such terms as " mechanical " and " dy-
namical" inspiration, and all the theories that have
grown round these epithets, — all such distinctions as
inspirations of superintendence, inspirations of sug-
gestion, and so forth, — all attempts again to draw lines
of demarcation between the inspiration of the books
of Scripture themselves and the inspiration of the
authors of which those books were results, may be
most profitably dismissed from our thoughts, and the
whole subject calmly reconsidered from what may be
termed a Scriptural point of view. The holy Volume
itself shall explain to us the nature of that influence
by which it is pervaded and quickened.

8. Thus far we are perfectly in accord with our
opponents. We are agreed on both sides that there is
such a thing as inspiration in reference to the Scrip-
tures, and we are further agreed that the Scriptures
themselves are the best sources of information on the
subject. Here, however, all agreement completely
ceases. "When we invite our opponents to go with us
to the Scriptures to discuss their statements on the
subject before us, and to compare the inferences and
deductions that either side may make from them, we
at once find that by an appeal to Scripture we and our
opponents mean something utterly and entirely dif-
ferent. We mean a consideration of what Scripture
says about itself: we find that they mean a stock-
taking of its errors and inaccuracies, of its antagonisms

.gi AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

with science and its oppositions to history, — all which
they tell ns must first be estimated, and with all which
they urge, that inspiration, he it whatever it may,
must be°reconcilable and harmonized. In a word, both
sides have started from the first on widely different
assumptions. We assume that what Scripture says is
trustworthy, and so conceive that ft may be fittingly
appealed to as a witness concerning its own character-
istics ; they assume that it abounds in errors and in-
congruities, and suggest that the number and nature
of these ought to be generally ascertained before any
further step can be taken, or any opinion safely arrived
at on the whole subject. Such seems a fair estimate of
the position and attitude of the two contending parties.
If this statement of our relative positions be just,
it seems perfectly clear that several different lines of
argument may be adopted. We may examine the
grounds on which their assumption rests, or endeavour
to establish the validity of our own. We may deny
that any errors or inaccuracies exist, and throw upon
them the onus probandi, or we may take the most
popular and telling instances in their enumeration and
endeavour to discover by fair investigation how far
they deserve their position, and how far prejudice and
exaggeration may not have been at work on their side,
as conservatism and accommodation on ours. All
these are courses which may be adopted with more or
less advantage, but any one of which would occupy
far more space than we can afford for this portion of
our subject. We must satisfy ourselves, on the present
occasion, with making, on the one hand, a few affirma-
tive comments upon the nature, degree, and limits of
the inspiration which we assign to the Scripture ; and
on the other hand, a few negative comments upon
counter-statements advanced by opponents, which seem
more than usually untrustworthy.

To begin with the negative side, let us observe, in
the first place, that nothing can really be less tenable
than the assertion that there is no foundation in the
Gospels or Epistles for any of the higher or super-

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTE11PEETATI0N. 4Q5

natural views of inspiration. It is a perfectly intel-
ligible line of argument to assert that for the testimony
of any "book upon its own nature and characteristics to
be worth anything, it must first be shown that the book
can fully be relied on : it is quite consistent with fair
reasoning to refuse to accept as final or conclusive the
evidence of what it may be contended has been shown
to be a damaged witness. Such modes of argument
are quite fair and intelligible, and as such we have no
fault to find with them ; but to make at the outset an
assertion, such as we are now considering, — to prej-
udice the minds of the inexperienced by an affirma-
tion, which, if believed, cannot fail to produce the
strongest possible effect, and which all the time is the
very reverse of what is the fact, is indeed very like
that "random scattering of uneasiness'* which has
been attributed to our opponents,'- and which such
cases as the present go very far to substantiate. It is
scarcely possible that those who make such assertions
can be ignorant of the terms in which our Lord is
represented by the Gospels to have spoken about the
Scriptures of the Old Testament. It cannot surely be
forgotten that He said that they " could not be
broken " (John x. 35), and that when he so spake He
was using Scripture in a manner that almost vouched
for its verbal and literal infallibility. It cannot have
been overlooked that when He was citing the words of
David He defined the divine influence under which
those words were uttered (Mark xii. 36). Does not an
Evangelist record His promise to His Apostles that
the Holy Ghost " should teach them all things, and
bring all things which He said to them to their re-
membrance" (John xiv. 26)? and does not that same
Evangelist mention the yet more inclusive promise
that the same Eternal Spirit should lead the Disciples
into " the whole truth " (John xvi. 13) ? and are such
words to be explained away or to be limited ? Does
not the same writer further tell us that the Holy
Ghost was almost visibly given to the Apostles by the

- See Moberly, Preface to ' Sermons on the Beatitudes,' p. ii.
20*

4(3(3 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

Lord Himself (John xx. 22) ? and does not another
Evangelist tell of the completed fulness of that gift, and
of men so visibly filled with the Holy Spirit that the
lips of bystanders and strangers bore their ready and
amazed testimony ? Have we no foundation for assert-
ing a higher inspiration when eleven men are told by
a parting Lord that they are to be his witnesses, and
that they are to receive supernatural assistance for
their mission ? Is testimony to be confined to words
spoken, and to be denied to words written? Did the
power that glowed in the heart of the speaker die out
when he took up the pen of the writer? Was not,
again, the "demonstration of the Spirit " laid claim to
by St. Paul (1 Cor. ii. 4); was it not " God's wisdom"
that he spake (ver. 7) ? Does he not plainly say that
the things " which God prepared for those that love
Him," His purposes of mercy and counsels of love,
were revealed to him by God through the agency of
the Spirit (ver. 10)? and does he not enhance his
declaration not only by affirmatively stating from
whom his teaching was directly imparted, but by
stating, on the negative side, that to man's wisdom he
owed it not ? Yea, and lest it should be thought that
such high prerogatives belonged only to words spoken
by the lips, does not the same Apostle guard himself,
as it were, by claiming for his written words an origin
equally Divine % and does he not make the recognition
of this a very test of illumination and spirituality
(1 Cor. xiv. 37) ? We pause, not from lack of further
statements, but from the feeling that quite enough has
been said to lead any fair reader to pronounce the
assertion of there being "no foundation" in the
Gospels or Epistles for any of the higher or super-
natural views of inspiration contrary to evidence, and
perhaps even to admit that such assertions, where
ignorance cannot be pleaded in extenuation, are not to
be deemed consistent with fair and creditable ^ argu-
ment. To deny the worth or validity of such testimony
is perfectly compatible with fair controversy ; to deny
its existence in the teeth of such evidence, — and such

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 4Q7

evidence is known and patent, — can only be designed
to give a bias to a reader, and to raise up antecedent
prejudices in reference to subjects and opinions after-
wards to be introduced. How far such a mode of
dealing With grave questions is just or defensible, we
will leave others to decide.

Let us make a second remark of a somewhat simi-
lar character, and earnestly protest against hazy and
indefinite modes of speaking about the testimony of
the Church in reference to the doctrine of inspiration.
Whether the Church is right or wrong in its estimate
of the nature and limits of this gift, is certainly a ques-
tion which those who feel the necessity of inquiry are
perfectly at liberty to entertain. We may pity a state
of mind that is not moved by such authority, and we
may suspect it to be ill-balanced ; but we do not com-
plain of such a mode of proceeding. If a man wishes
to find out whether the Early Church, for instance, is
right or wrong in its estimate of a principle or a doc-
trine, let him (in a serious and anxious spirit) com-
mence his investigation, but let him not seek by vague
and indefinite language to make it first doubtful whether
the Early Church really did form any estimate at all, —
when that estimate is plainly set dowm in black and
white in fifty different treatises. Let us, at any rate,
have a clear understanding on the question at issue,
and agree as honest men to throw no doubts upon sim-
ple matters of simplest fact. Now, when we are told
that the term inspiration is but of yesterday, and more
especially that the question of inspiration was not de-
termined by Fathers of the Church, we do seem justi-
fied in protesting against such really unfair attempts to
gain over those who have neither the time, the knowl-
edge, nor perhaps the will, to test the truth of the asser-
tion. Let there be no mistake on this subject. The
Fathers of the Church may be right or they may be
wrong ; but, at any rate, on this topic they have spoken
most frequently and most plainly, and if any question
in the world may be considered determined by them
this certainly is one. The Apostolical Fathers term the

46g AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

Scriptures " the true sayings " of the Holy Ghost (Clem.
Bom. ad Cor. i. 45). In quoting passages from the Old
Testament they often use the significant formula " the
Holy Ghost saith." Those that followed them used
their language. Justin Martyr describes the* nature of
inspiration, and even hints at its limits (Cohort. § 8) ;
Irenoens speaks of the Scriptures as " spoken by the
Word of God and His Spirit" (ffcer. ii. 28. 2); and
even attributes to the foresight of the Eternal Spirit the
choice of this rather than that mode of expression in
the opening words of St. Matthew's Gospel (Hwr. iii.
16. 2). In quoting a prophet, Clement of Alexandria
pauses to correct himself, and say it wTas not so much
the prophet as the Holy Spirit in him (Cohort. § 8, p.
66), and on the question of Scripture infallibility and
perfection he is no less precise and definite (Cohort. § 9,
p. 68 ; Strom, ii. p. 432, vii. p. 897, ed. Potter). Ter-
tullian and Cyprian carry onward the common senti-
ment ; those who follow them reiterate the same so fre-
quently and so definitively that we become embar-
rassed by the very affluence of our examples. Euse-
bius of Csesarea deals even with technicalities, and
brands those who dared to say that the writers of
Scripture put one name in the place of another (Com-
ment, in Psalm, xxxiii., ed. Montf.). Augustine states
most explicitly his views on the whole subject, and
asserts the infallibility of Scripture in language which
the strongest asserter of the so-called bibliolatry of the
day could not desire to see made more definite or un-
qualified (see for example Epist. lxxxii. 3, torn. ii. p.
285, ed. Bened. 2). . . Again we pause. "We could con-
tinue such quotations almost indefinitely. We could put
our fingers positively on hundreds of such passages in
the writings of the Fathers of the first five or six cen-
turies ; we could quote the language of early Councils ;
we could point to the silent testimony of early contro-
versies, each side claiming Scripture to be that from
which there could be no appeal ; we could even call in
heretics, and prove from their own defences of their
own tenets, from their own admissions and their own

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 4(59

assumptions, that the inspiration of Scripture was of
all subjects one that was conceived thoroughly settled
and agreed upon. Enough, however, has perhaps been
said, enough quoted, to place the matter beyond tloubt,
and to make this perfectly certain, — that what are
called high views of inspiration were entertained al-
most unanimously by the earlier writers of the Church.
So obvious, indeed, is the fact that writers like Gfrorer
not only concede the fact of the agreement of the early
writers, and admit the strong opinions they held on the
subject, but use it as a very ground of reproach against
them, and call upon us to wonder how men who enter-
tained such high views on the inspiration of Scripture
could possibly be such arbitrary and unfaithful inter-
preters.

A third remark may be made on the negative side
by way of complaint that we find so little weight as-
signed to the subjective argument, as it may be termed,
for the inspiration of Scripture. In the sceptical writ-
ings of the day the argument is rarely stated except to
be dealt with as a form of a natural but not very harm-
less illusion. Yet it is an argument of the greatest force
and importance, and an argument which, if rightly
handled, it is much easier to set aside than to answer.
Is it nothing that the Bible has spoken to millions upon
millions of hearts, as it were with the very voice of
God Himself? Have not its words burned within till
men have seen palpably the Divine in that which spake
to them ? Is it not a fact that convictions on the nature
of the Scriptures deepen with deepening study of them?
Ask the simple man to whom the Bible has long be-
come the daily friend and counsellor, who reads and
applies what he reads as far as his natural powers ena-
ble him ; ask him whether longer and more continued
study has altered to any extent his estimate of the
Book as a Divine revelation. What is the invariable
answer? The Book "has found him ;" it has consoled
him in sorrows for which there seemed no consolation
on this side the grave ; it has wiped away tears that it
seemed could only be wiped away in that far land

470 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

where sadness shall be no more ; it has pleaded gently
during long seasons of spiritual coldness ; it has infused
strength in hours of weakness ; it has calmed in mo-
ments of excitement ; it has given to better emotions a
permanence, and to stirred-up feelings a reality ; it has
made itself felt to be what it is ; out of the abundance
of his heart the mouth speaks, and he tells us with all
the accumulated convictions of an honest mind, that if
he once deemed the Bible to be fully inspired on the tes-
timony of others, now he knows it on evidence that has
been brought home to his own soul. He has now long
had the witness in himself, and that witness he feels
and knows is unchangeably and encluringly true.

Ask, again, the professed student of Scripture, the
scholar, the divine, the interpreter, one who, to what
we may term the testimony of the soul, in the case of
the less cultivated reader, can add the testimony of the
mind and the spirit, — ask such a one whether increased
familiarity with Scripture has quickened or obscured
his perception of the Divine within it, whether it has
led him to higher or to lower views of inspiration.
Have not, we may perhaps anxiously ask, the difficul-
ties of Scripture wearied him, its seeming discordances
perplexed, its obscurities depressed him? Have not
the tenor of its arguments, and the seeming want of
coherence and connexion in adjacent sentences, some-
times awakened uneasy and disquieting thoughts?
What is almost invariably the answer? — "JSTo; far
otherwise." Deepened study has brought its blessing
and its balm. It has shown how what might seem the
greatest difficulties often turn merely upon our ignor-
ance of one or two unrecorded facts or relations ; it has
conducted to standing-points where in a moment all
that has hitherto seemed confused and distorted has
arranged itself in truest symmetry and in the fairest
perspective. In many an obscure passage our student
will tell us how the light has ofttimes suddenly broken,
how he has been cheered by being permitted to recog-
nize and identify the commingling of human weakness
and Divine power, the mightv revelation almost too

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 471

great for mortal utterance, the "earthen vessel" almost
parting asunder from the greatness and abundance of
the heavenly treasure committed to it. He will tell
us, again, how in many a portion where the logical
connexion has seemed suspended or doubtful, — in one
of those discourses, for instance, of his Lord as re-
corded by St. John, — the true connexion has at length
slowly and mysteriously disclosed itself, how he has
perceived and realized all. For a while he has felt
himself thinking as his Saviour vouchsafed to think, in
part beholding truth as those Divine eyes beheld it ;
for a brief space his mind has seemed to be consciously
one with the mind of Christ. All this he has per-
ceived and felt. And he will tell us, perchance, what
lias often been the sequel ; how he has risen from his
desk and fallen on his knees, and with uplifted voice
blessed and adored Almighty God for His gift of the
Book of Life.

The cold-hearted may smile at such tilings, the so-
called philosophical may affect to account for them ;
they may be put aside as illusions, or they may be ex-
plained away as projections of self on the passive page,
unconscious infusion of one's own feelings and emotions
in the calm words that meet the outward eye. All
this has been urged against such testimony, and will
ever be urged even to the very end. But when the
end does come the truth will appear. That witnessing
of soul and spirit will, it may be, rise up in silent judg-
ment against many a one who now slights it; that testi-
mony so often rejected as self-engendered and fanciful,
will be seen to have been real and heaven-born, a reflex
image of an eternal truth, a part and a portion of the
surest of the sure things of God.

9. But let us now pass from the negative to the
positive, and make a few affirmative observations on
the subject before us. Let us begin, not with a theory,
but with a definition and a statement of the belief that
is in us. If asked to define what we mean by the in-
spiration of Scripture, let us be bold, and make answer
— that fully convinced as we are that the Scripture is

472

AIDS TO FAITH. (Essay IX

the revelation through human media of the infinite
mind of God to the finite mind of man, and recognizing
as we do both a human and a Divine element in the
written Word, we verily believe that the Holy Ghost
was so breathed into the mind of the writer, so illu-
mined his spirit and pervaded his thoughts, that, while
nothing that individualized him as man was taken
away, everything that -was necessary to enable him to
declare Divine Truth in all its fulness was bestowed
and superadded. And, as consonant with this, Ave
further believe that this influence of the Spirit, wheth-
er by illumination, suggestion, superintendence, or all
combined, extended itself— -first, to the enunciation
of sentiments and doctrines, that so the will and coun-
sels of God should not be a matter of doubt, but of
certain knowledge ; secondly, to statements, recitals,
facts, that so the truth into which the writer was led
should be known and recognized; thirdly, to the choice
of expressions, modes of speech, and perhaps occasion-
ally even of words (the individuality of the writer being
conserved), that so the subject-matter of the revelation
might be conveyed in the fittest and most appropriate
language, and in the garb best calculated to set off its
dignity and -commend its truth.

Let such be our definition. If asked how we justi-
fy it, how we prove our assertions, we answer in two
ways : first, by d priori arguments of great force and
validity; secondly, by d posteriori arguments of equal
or even greater strength — arguments which our pre-
ceding remarks on the negative side have been de-
signed indirectly to set forward and substantiate. Into
these arguments we do not intend to enter, but we may
profitably pause to specify them. On the d priori side,
and especially in reference to the Old Testament, we
may specify evidences of inspiration derived from the
clear accordance of various events with prophecies
special or general that can be proved to have been
uttered before the events in question. Among in-
stances of this nature the history and present state of
the Jews have been always rightly and confidently

Essay IX.] BCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 4^3

appealed to.* Again, on the same side, but more in
reference to the New Testament, it has been fairly
urged that, if we admit the general truth and Divine
character of the Christian dispensation, we can hardly
believe that those who were chosen to declare its prin-
ciples and to make known its doctrines were not es-
pecially guarded from error in the execution of their
weighty commission, and were not divinely guided
both in the words they uttered and the statements they
committed to writing. On the d posteriori side we
may specify the three great arguments to which we
have already alluded : the direct declarations of Scrip-
ture, the trustworthy character of Scripture having
been first demonstrated ;f the unanimous consent of
the early writers, and unchanging testimony of the
Catholic Church; and, lastly, the inward and subjec-
tive testimony to the Divine nature of the Scripture
yielded by the soul and spirit of the individual. Other
arguments there are, especially on the d priori side, of
varying degrees of strength and solidity, appealing in
different ways to different minds ; but the chief per-
haps have been specified, and on these we may safely
and securely base our preceding assertions, and our
unhesitating and unqualified belief in the full inspira-
tion of the Word of God.

But it may be asked, how do we conceive that this
inspiration took place? What is our theory of the
process ? what do we conceive to be the modus agendi
of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man? This we
plainly refuse to answer. We know not, and do not
presume to inquire into the manner ; we recognize and
believe in the fact. Individual writers may have spec-
ulated ; imagery, suitable or unsuitable, may have been
introduced as illustrative by a few thinkers in early
ages ; but the Catholic Church has never put forward
a theory. On this subject she has always maintained

* See Moberly, Preface to ' Sermons on the Beatitudes,' p. xxxii.

t Thus to appeal to Scripture to define its own character in reference to
inspiration seems perfectly fair, when the trustworthy character of the
volume has been properly denonstrated ; compare the remarks of Chalmers,
'Christian Evidences/ iv. 2. 26, vol. iv\, p. 390. (Glasgow ed.)

474 AIDS T0 FAITH. LEssayIX

a solemn reserve ; slie declares to us that in the Scrip-
ture the Holy Ghost speaks to us by the mouths of
men; she permits us to recognize a Divine and a
human element ; but, in reference to the nature, ex-
tent, and special circumstances of the union, she warns
us not to seek to be wise above what has been written,
not to endanger our faith with speculations and conjec-
tures about that which has not been revealed. Theo-
ries of inspiration are what scepticism is ever craving
for ; it is the voice of hapless unbelief that is ever
loudest in its call for explanation of the manner of the
assumed union of the Divine with the human, or of
the proportions in which each element is to be admitted
and recognized. Such explanations have not been
vouchsafed, and it is as vain and unbecoming to de-
mand them as it is to require a theory of the union of
the Divinity and Humanity in the person of Christ, or
an estimate of the proportions in which the two perfect
natures are to be conceived to co-exist.

JSot much more profitable is the inquiry into the
exact limits of inspiration, whether it is to be consid-
ered in all cases as extending to words, or whether it
is only to be confined to sentiments and doctrines. At
first sight we might be inclined to adopt the latter
statement, and such, to some extent, would certainly
seem to have been the view of a writer of no less anti-
quity and learning than Justin Martyr ; still when we
remember, on the one hand, that there are instances in
Scripture in which weighty arguments have in some
degree been seen to depend on the very words and ex-
pressions that are made use of (John x. 3tt : Gal. iii.
16), and on the other, that many important truths must
have lost much of their force and significance if they
had not been expressed exactly with that verbal preci-
sion which the subject-matter might have demanded,
we shall be wise either to forbear coming to any deci-
sion, or else to adopt that guarded view which we have
already indirectly advocated, viz., that in all passages
of importance, wheresoever the natural powers of the
writer would not have supplied the befitting word or

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEEEETATION. 4^5

expression, there it was supplied by the real though
probably unperceived influence of the Spirit of God.

A question of far greater moment, and far more
practical importance, is that which relates to the exact
degree of the inspiration, the fallibility or infallibility
of the Sacred Records. "Was the inspiration such as
wholly to preclude errors and inaccuracies, or was it
such as can be compatible with either one or the other ?
This is clearly the real anxious question of our own times,
and one to which we must briefly return an answer,
as general canons of interpretation must obviously to
some extent be modified by the opinions we form on
a subject which so seriously affects the character of the
documents before us. Let us pause for a moment to
consider the answer that is now commonly returned by
those among us who claim to be considered of ad-
vanced thought and intelligence. They tell us, in
language of unrestrained confidence, that no man of
candour can fail to acknowledge the existence not only
of mistakes as to matters of minor importance, but of
such positive "patches of human passion and error,"
such " weakness of memory," or such " mingling of it
with imagination," such "feebleness of inference, such
confusion of illustration with argument," and such
variations in judgment and opinion, that in the study
of Scripture we must continually have recourse to a
" rectifying or verifying faculty," that we may proper-
ly be enabled to separate the Divine from the human,
— what is true, real, and unprejudiced, from what is
perverted, mistaken, and false. In a word, the Sacred
writers now stand charged with errors of two kinds, —
errors of mind and judgment, and errors in matters of
fact, but on evidence (as the following remarks will
tend to show) which cannot be regarded either as suffi-
cient or conclusive.

To substantiate the first class of errors we may com-
monly observe two modes of proceeding : on the one
hand, the more reckless method of citing difficult texts,
assuming that they contain a meaning arbitrarily fixed
on by the critic, and probably not intended by the writer,

476 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

and then censuring him for not having intelligibly ex-
pressed it ; on the other hand, the more guarded but
equally mischievous suggestion that the logic of the
Scriptures is rhetorical in character, and that such pas-
sages as Rom. i. 16 seq., Horn. iii. 19, al., are examples
of some forms of error in reasoning, and such opposi-
tions as "light and darkness," "good and evil," "the
Spirit and the flesh," " the sheep and the goats," oppo-
sitions of ideas only, which are not realized in fact and
experience. "With regard to these methods, we will say
briefly that the first is unfair and discreditable; the
second, simple assertion that can either be disproved
in detail, or that fairly admits of counter-assertion of
greater probable truth.

The second class of alleged errors is, at first sight,
of more importance and plausibility. It professes to
include oppositions to science, oppositions to received
history, and cases of direct mutual contradiction. Of
these three forms we may again briefly say that in-
stances of the first kind, far from increasing, are steadily
decreasing under a just comparison of the true meaning
of the words of Scripture with the accredited conclu-
sions of science. Recent discussions of the subjects of
controversy by men of acknowledged scientific attain-
ments have tended to show that the oppositions of Scrip-
ture and science are really far more doubtful than they
are assumed to be, and that though they still hold a very
prominent place on the pages of the charlatan, they one
by one disappear from the treatises of men of real science
who have scholarship sufficient to extract the real mean-
ing of the language of Scripture in the passages under
consideration. . . . Much the same sort of remark, mw-
tatis mutandis, may be made on alleged oppositions to
received History or Chronology ; many of the supposed
oppositions held in former times to be inexplicable have
now entirely passed away from the scene, and have
alike ceased to stimulate the sceptic or to disquiet the
believer ; others, like the case of Cyrenius (Luke ii. 2),
are all but gone ; and as to what remain there is a grow-
ing feeling among unbiassed scholars and historians that

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 477

if we could but obtain the knowledge of a few more
facts relative to the various points at issue, the opposi-
tions of Scripture and History would wholly cease to
exist, ... In regard of mutual contradictions, it might
be thought a better case has been made out. Writers
from whom we might have looked for more guarded
comment have done much to exaggerate the so-called
discrepancies of the Scripture narrative, and have some-
what too emphatically denounced modes of explanation
that, both from their simplicity and, not unfrequently,
their antiquity, have very great claims on our consid-
eration. Sceptics have not been slow to take advantage
of this ill-advised course. When, however, all these so-
called contradictions are mustered up, they are but a
motley and an enfeebled host. We survey them, and
we observe some as old as the days of Celsus, and as
decrepit as they are old ; others vainly hiding all but
mortal wounds received in conflicts of the past, and now
only craving a coup de grace from some combatant of
our own times ; some of a later date, and a more aspiring
air, recruited from Deistical controversies of a century
or two back, but all marked with uncomely scars, and
armed with nothing better than broken or corroded
weapons. There they stand ; the discrepancy between
two Evangelists about the original dwelling-place of
Mary and Joseph, explained and well explained four-
teen hundred years ago ; the two genealogies, fairly dis-
cussed in ancient times, and in our own explained in a
manner that approaches to positive demonstration ; the
blasphemy of the tico thieves, disposed of very reason-
ably by Chrysostom, and since his time on the same or
a similar principle by every unprejudiced commentator ;
the narrative of the woman who anointed our Lord's
feet, first prepared for the occasion by the assumption
that the narratives in all the four Gospels relate to the
same woman, — an assumption regarded even by Meyer,
and apparently De Wette, as plainly contrary to the
fact. And so on. When we survey such a company,
and are told thatj at any rate, we should respect their
numbers, their aggregate authority, their cumulative

478 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

weight, an uneasy feeling arises in the mind that those
who parade them must really be aware that there is
something amiss with each case, that, however numer-
ically strong they may be, it is disagreeably true that
as individual instances they are disabled or weak. If
so, is there not a great responsibility resting on those
who bring forward catalogues of such instances, and yet
do not apprise the simple and the inexperienced that
each supposed difficulty has most certainly been met
over and over again, and with very reasonable success;
that this array, so to be respected for its numbers, is
really strong in nothing else, — a mere rabble of half-
armed or disarmed men ?

But finally, it may be said, are we prepared to assert
that no inaccuracy, even in what all might agree in re-
garding as a wholly unimportant matter of fact, — a date,
for instance, or a name, or a popular statement of an
indifferent matter, — either has been, or can ever be,
found in the whole compass of Scripture ? To that
question, in its categorical form, we should perhaps be
wise in refusing positively to return any answer. We
have no theory of inspiration, we only state what we
find to be a matter of fact, we only put forward what
those facts and the testimony of the Church alike war-
rant us in defining as the true and Catholic doctrine.
We have no means of settling definitely whether aj^osse
peccare in minor matters ma}T, or may not, be compat-
ible with a Divine revelation communicated through
human media ; but certainly till inaccuracies, fairly and
incontestably proved to be so, are brought home to the
Scripture, we seem logically justified in believing that
as it is with nine-tenths of the alleged contradictions in
Scripture, so is it with the alleged inaccuracy. Either
the so-called inaccuracy is due to our ignorance of some
simple fact, which, if known, would explain all ; or it
is really only an illustration of one of those very condi-
tions and characteristics of human testimony, however
honest and truthful, without which it would cease to be
human testimony at all. If positively forced to state
our opinion, we will express what we believe to be the

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 479

true doctrine of inspiration in tins particular by an ex-
ample and a simile. As in the case of the Incarnate
Word we fully recognize in the Lord's humanity all
essentially human limitations and weaknesses, the hun-
ger, the thirst, and the weariness on the side of the
body, and the gradual development on the side of the
human mind (Luke ii. 40), — in a word, all that belongs
to the essential and original characteristics of the pure
form of the nature He vouchsafed to assume, but plainly
deny the existence therein of the faintest trace of sin, or
of moral or mental imperfection, — even so in the case
of the written Word, viewed on its purely human side,
and in its reference to matters previously admitted to
have no hearing on Divine truth, we may admit therein
the existence of such incompleteness, such limitations,
and such imperfections as belong even to the highest
forms of purely truthful human testimony, but consist-
ently deny the existence of mistaken views, perversion,
misrepresentation, and any form whatever of consciously
committed error or inaccuracy.

10. We have thus at length touched upon all the
main points in which the doctrine of the inspiration of
Scripture is in any degree likely to come in contact
with rules and principles of interpretation. Less than
this could not have been said. Less it was not logically
consistent to say. It may, indeed, seem plausible to
urge that we have no right to express any prior opinion
on such subject ; that we have only to apply to Scrip-
ture the ordinary rules of interpretation which we ob-
serve in the case of other books, and that we ought to
leave the question of inspiration to be settled by the re-
sults we arrive at. Is it not, however, abundantly clear
that if there be even a low presumption, arising from
external or internal evidence, for supposing that the
Scripture lias characteristics which render it very un-
like any other book, then it is only right and reasonable
to examine that evidence before we apply rules of inter-
pretation which, perhaps, may be found in the sequel
to be inadmissible or inapplicable? Surely, on the
very face of the matter it seems somewhat strange to

4S0

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

be told to interpret the Scripture like any other book,
while in the same breath it is avowed that there are
many respects in which Scripture is unlike any other
book. It is really very much the same as being told to
ascertain with a two-foot rule the precise linear dimen-
sions of a room of which it is known or admitted that
the sides are not always straight, but variously curved
and embayed. The application of our two-foot rule
would doubtless put very clearly before us, if we had
ever doubted it, not only the fact that bays and curva-
tures really did exist, but also that the instrument in
our hands was a singularly unfit one for measuring
what it was plain required something less rigid and im-
practicable. The duty of the two-foot rule would really
then be over, unless we chose to reserve it for those parts
where the walls somewhat more nearly conformed to the
straight line. If, however, we desired properly to com-
plete our task, we should have to go home for our meas-
uring-tape. The nature and application, first of the
two-foot rule and then of the measuring-tape, may now
very fitly engage our attention, and occupy the remain-
ing portion of the present essay.

11. Hitherto we have been engaged in two very
important departments of the subject before us. In the
firs't part of our paper we have done our best to clear
away some of the errors and misrepresentations ^ con-
nected with the great alleged variety of Scripture inter-
pretations. In the second portion we have endeavoured
to arrive at a just estimate of the nature and character-
istics of Scripture, which must be recognized by the
careful and reverent interpreter. We have seen that
variety is to be expected, and difficulties to be prepared
for in the interpretation of Scripture, and we have fur-
ther seen that this variety and these difficulties are to
be ascribed, first, to the real difference between Scrip-
ture and every other book ; secondly, to the existence
in it of deeper meanings, as shown in its prophetic,

Essay IX.] SCKIPTtJBE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 401

typical, or even historical portions; and thirdly, to the
fact of its being a volume Avritten under the influence
of an inspiration which we have endeavoured briefly to
explain and substantiate. These two portions of our
subject being finished, we now proceed to the third
portion, — a discussion of what appears generally to be
the true and right method of interpreting a volume
characterized as wre have found the Scripture to be;
and a statement of a few principles, rules, and observa-
tions, which may be of some service to younger stu-
dents, and which experience has certainly shown to be
sound and trustworthy.

This forms the main department of our subject, and
admits of several subdivisions. Perhaps our simplest
course wTill be to devote the present section to a discus-
sion of general rules of interpretation — the really im-
portant portion of the subject; and to append in con-
cluding sections a few comments, on the one hand, upon
the application of Scripture, and, on the other, upon
the grammar and laws of the letter. In so doing we
confine ourselves principally to the New Testament,
but we shall perhaps be found not unfrequently to allude
to canons and principles that will apply to ail parts of
the Sacred Volume, and may benefit the student of the
Old as well as of the New testament. Ere, however,
we enter into these discussions, let one point be clearly
understood, — that there is a requisite, a necessary prep-
aration for the study of the Scripture, wdiich we assume
throughout, a preparation of more value than a knowl-
edge of all the rules and canons of the wisest interpret-
ers of ^ the world : that requisite and preparation is
preliminary prayer. It is not necessary to enlarge upon
a subject which speaks for itself; it is not necessary to
commend what the very instincts of the soul tell us is
a preparation simply and plainly indispensable. We
allude to it as by its very mention serving to hallow
our coining remarks, and as useful in reminding us, in
the pride and glory of our intellectual efforts, that it is
more than probable that the very simplest reader that
takes his translated Bible on his knees, and reads with
21

452 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX,

prayer that lie may understand, will attain a truer and
more inward knowledge of the words than will ever be
vouchsafed to him who, with all the appliances of phi-
lology and criticism, reads the original but forgets to
mark its holy character, and to pray that he may not
only read, but may also learn and understand. Would
to God that this rule were of more universal adoption,
and had been of late more regularly observed ; for then
we may be well assured that none of the scornfulness
and rash modes of interpretation against which we have
now to protest would ever have been put forth, and
have tried, as they now are trying, both the faith and
the patience of humbler students of the Word.

One further preliminary and requisite in the case
of the interpreter of Scripture we must here allude to,
both on account of its own intrinsic importance, and
still more in consequence of the startling wTay in which
it has been recently neglected. That requisite is can-
dour. Next, in the work of interpretation, to a prayer-
ful and humble stands a candid and honest spirit, — a
brave and faithful spirit that, knowing and believing
that God is a God of Truth, hesitates not to state with
all clearness and simplicity the results to which humble-
minded investigation seems in each case to lead,— that
scorns to palter and explain away, to gloss or to ideal-
ize,— that shrinks not from frankly specifying all the
details of the apparent discrepancy, be it with other
portions of Scripture, with science, or with history, be-
lieving thus that the true reconciliation will hereafter
be more readily discovered, — in a word, that has faith
clearly to tell the dream, and patience to wait for the
interpretation thereof. We cannot but observe that
even sounder 'interpreters both of our own and other
times have often sadly failed in this particular. We
own with sorrow that there have ever been over-eager
Uzzahs among us that have sought to upbear the en-
dangered truth with aids that have brought on them-
selves their own chastisement. We admit, alas ! that
good and earnest men have sometimes been driven by
anxieties and antagonisms into patently inadmissible

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 433

solutions ; we know that they have urged untenable
accommodations, and we are even willing to believe, as
our opponents tell us, that they have dwelt on evidence
that was in their favour, and have been very insuffi-
ciently sensitive to that which was against them. This
we know and admit, but at the same time we fail not
to observe that, as our coming examples will show, they
who have brought this charge against others lie griev-
ously open to it themselves, and that it is indeed time
that both parties should desist from courses which do
such deep dishonour to the Word of God, and imply
such an utter want both of faith and integrity.

Let the interpreter then resolve, with God's assist-
ing grace, to be candid and truthful. Let him fear not
to state honestly the results of his own honest investi-
gations ; let him be simple, reverent, and plain-spoken,
and, above all, let him pray against that sectarian bias
which, by importing its own foregone conclusions into
the word of Scripture, and by refusing to see or to ac-
knowledge what makes against its own prejudices, lias
proved the greatest known hindrance to all fair inter-
pretation, and has tended, more than anything else in
the world, to check the free course of Divine Truth.
To illustrate our meaning by examples. Let the inter-
preter in the first place be seduced by no timidity or
prejudices from ascertaining the true text. Let him
not fall back upon the too often repeated statement
that, as readings affect no great points of doctrine, the
subject may be left in abeyance. It is indeed most
true, that different readings of such a character as
1 Tim. iii. 16, or interpolations such as 1 John v. 7,
are few and exceptional. It is indeed a cause for de-
vout thankfulness, if not even for a recognition of a
special providence, that out of the vast number of
various readings so few affect vital questions ; still it is
indisputably a fact that but few pages of the New Tes-
tament can be turned over without our finding points
of the greatest interest affected by very trivial varia-
tions of reading. On the presence or absence of an
article in John v. 1 the whole chronology of our Lord's

484 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

ministerial life may be said almost entirely to depend.
A very slight alteration in Mark vii. 31 opens out a fact
of deep historical interest, and is of very great signifi-
cance in reference alike to commands subsequently
given to the Apostles to preach the Gospel, and to
former prohibitions (Matt. x. 5). The absence of two
words in Eph. i. 1 (now rendered somewhat more prob-
able by the testimony of the Codex Sinai ticus) gives a
fresh aspect to an important Epistle, disposes at once
of several prima facie difficulties, and further must be
taken greatly into account in the adjustment of some
subordinate but interesting questions with which the
Epistle has been thought to stand in connexion (Col.
iv. 16). The presence or absence of a few words in
Matt, xxviii. 9 affects considerably our ability to re-
move one of the many seeming discrepancies in the
narratives of the first hours of the morn of the Eesur-
rection. We could multiply such examples, but per-
haps enough has been said. There are indeed several
grounds for thinking that there is an improved feeling
on the whole subject; and there seem some reasons for
hoping that though no authoritative revision is likely
to take place, nor, at present perhaps, even to be de-
sired, yet that the time is coming when there will be
a considerable agreement on many of the results of
modern criticism, and when it will be as startling to
hear a sermon deliberately preached on Acts viii. 37,
as it would be now on the Heavenly -Witnesses. There
are, alas ! still many signs of uneasiness and obstruc-
tion; but we do entreat and conjure those who would
only too gladly put the whole question in abeyance to
pause, seriously to pause, before they do such dishonour
to the words of inspiration, and leave clinging to our
Church both the reproaches which are now so pitilessly
cast upon us all by the gainsayer, and that still deeper
reproach of our own hearts, — that, believing the Bible
to be a special, direct, and inspired revelation from
God, we have yet not used the means now at hand of
ascertaining the exact language in which that revela-
tion is vouchsafed. Mournful indeed will be the retro-

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 435

spect, arid gloomy indeed the future, if unbecoming
anxiety or a timid conservatism is to tempt honest
hearts to show sadly lacking measures of faith, and to
deal deceitfully with the Oracles of God.

If this be the first form in which candour is to be
shown, let the second be the fearless statement of the
apparent results of investigation, whether on this side
or on that, in the case of collective or individual pas-
sages. A few remarks will illustrate our meaning, and
will incidentally substantiate what wre have stated
above, viz., that those who have recently most inveighed
against want of candour in others are grievously lack-
ing in it themselves.* What, for instance, can be more
uncandid than to imply that justification by faith may
mean " peace of mind or sense of Divine approval,"
when against it we have not only the current of two
important Epistles, but observe that in the very passage
from which such a perverted view might have been
derived (Rom. v. 1) the mention of the Saviour as the
medium shows in what sense the Apostle meant his
words to be understood, and how consistently he could
state eight verses afterwards that we were justified in
and by the blood of Christ (eV rep aifiart), and were rec-
onciled by His death (ver. 10) ? How really unpar-
donable to hint that resurrection may mean " a spiritual
quickening," and to stamp the exact meaning of the
hint by the subsequent assertion, that Heaven is not a
place so much as fulfilment of the love of God, when
this is a perversion of the word against which an Apos-
tle has left a special and determinate protest! How
opposed to all principles of honest explanation to imply
that propitiation is the recovery of a peace with God
which sin has interrupted, and to follow it up by the
supplementary assertion that negation of " rite of blood"
belongs essentially to a spiritual God, when we have
the drift of part of a long Epistle opposed to such a
view, and when we further observe that a mention of
the material element " blood " in connexion with our

* For the culpable statements and insinuations reprehended in the text,
see ' Essays and Reviews,' p. 80 seq.

4o6 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essa? IX.

redemption and our Lord's atonement (Eph. i. 7, ii. 13;
1 Pet. i. 2, 19, al.) is in the New Testament so per-
petual and pervasive that he who denies it must be
prepared to deny the evidence of his own senses ! Such
melancholy perversions of Scripture may perhaps be
extreme cases, but they may suitably serve as exam-
ples of the lengths to which prejudice and want of
candour may at last proceed, and may incidentally
warn us that the dread term "judicial blindness'' ex-
presses no mere fancy of theologians, but a frightful
and a substantive truth.

With such painful examples before us, surely the
duty of resolving at all costs to be candid, to estimate
fairly the details, and state honestly the results of in-
vestigations, be the apparent tenor of those results
whatever it may, seems to press itself upon us with
redoubled force. Never was there a time when can-
dour on all sides seemed more necessary, never a period
in the history of our Church when a frank recognition
of points of difficulty and difference seerned'likely to be
productive of more real good. Above all things, let
us not yield to the temptation of holding back what we
believe to be the true aspect of a passage because it
may be thought to lend a passing countenance to the
tenets of opponents. Let ns be fair to all sides. "While
then, for example, we justly protest against the use of
1 Cor. iii. 13 to establish Purgatory, because, on the
one hand, perspicuity, and, on the other, details (iv
nrvpi), as illustrated by parallel passages (2 Thess. i. 8 ;
Dan. vii. 9, 10 ; Mai. iv. 1), alike seem to point to
rj rj/jbipa (previously agreed npon by both sides to
be " dies Domini," Vulg.) being the nominative to
dirofcaXvirTeTcu ; so, in the case of 2 Tim. i. 16 (comp.
ch. iv. 19) we do not shrink from giving the opinion
that the terms of the verse seem to imply that Onesi-
phorus was dead at the time that the Epistle was writ-
ten, though we may know the use that will be made of
the statement. While, again, we deny the fairness of
using Gal. v. 6 to support the theory of a fides formata,
we are not deterred by the known use of the text in

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 457

support of Tradition from stating the opinion that, in
the case of 2 Thess. ii. 15, the use of iScSdxdvre and the
general tenor of the context justify the reference of
irapahocreis to matters, not only of discipline, but also
of doctrine. ... To pass to other opponents : we fear
not, on the one side, to give up several of the examples
said to fall under Granville Sharp's rule, as, for exam-
ple, Eph. v. 5, 2 Thess. i. 12, deeming the application
of the rule in words like ®eo? and Kvptos to be, gram-
matically considered, precarious ; on the other side, we
feel the contextual allusions to be so distinct in Tit. ii.
13, that we have no hesitation in stating our firm belief
that the title " Great God " is there applied to the Lord
Jesus. Again, we are not afraid to own that vizkp,
though apparently so used in Philem. 13, is not safely
to be pressed in every doctrinal passage similar to GaL
iii. 13, or 1 Pet. iii. 18, as serving to establish the doc-
trine of our Lord's vicarious sufferings : we claim how-
ever, in return, the same candour at the hands of our
opponents in the interpretation of such passages as 1
Tim. ii. 6 (dvriXvrpov), 1 Pet. ii. 24, which, if words
mean anything, do assuredly imply that doctrine in
the most plain and unqualified way. We deny not all
the fair inferences that flow from such passages as —
" every soul shall bear its own iniquity," — but we do
justly complain, with such words before us as re/cva
opyrjs (Eph. ii. 2 ; actually rendered by one living writ-
er " children of impulse " *), and with a variety of simi-
lar allusions positively pervading the New Testament,
that we should be told that the Christian scheme of
redemption " has been staked" on two so-called figura-
tive expressions of St. Paul, as found in Eom. v. 12
and 1 Cor. xv. 22. 'We draw back with positive repug-
nance from such a gloss as that of Beza ("quosvis
homines ") on the holy inclusiveness of the iravTa^ in 1
Tim. ii. 5, yet again we do not shrink from a single
inference that legitimately comes from the igeXegaro
in such passages as Eph. i. 4, nor do we deny that few
topics have been more overlooked, and few which throw

* See Maurice, ' Unity of the New Testament,' p. 538.

4gg AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX

a greater light on the final adjustment of all things,
than the circumstances, characteristics, and prerogatives
of the elect. Few perversions, again, have been more
decided than the change of nominative in Heb. x. 38,
yet this ought all the more to urge us, on the other
side, to set an example of candour in the interpretation
of the iinTekeaei in Phil. i. 6, and not to tamper with
the tense of /3e/3aia)crei,, or the meaning of ea)9 rekovs in
1 Cor. i. 8. So again, though we may use Calvin's
own words, and regard it in truth as a horribile decretuvi
that would involve in a predetermined perdition the
darkened nations of a pagan world, we yet refuse to
interpret against the icsus scribendi of an inspired
author, and in a passage like Bom. i. 24: we dare not
regard a grammatical formula which appears in almost
all cases to mark purpose, as in this case only indica-
tive of issue and result. Lastly, to gather up a hand-
ful of passages with which party bias has dealt deceit-
fully,— if we regard it as unprincipled that such a word
as ikaaTi'ipiov should be explained away in Bom. iii.
25, perverse that such a plain and positive concrete
term as Xovrpov should be volatilised in Eph. v. 2G, Tit.
iii. 5, or such a passage as John iii. 5 toned down,
monstrous that such a clear prohibition as that in Col.
ii. 18 should be evaded by an unauthorized limitation
of one word (OpTjo-fceia), or a non-natural explanation of
another (ayyiXcDv), — if, again, we recoil from the ex-
pressed or implied denials of the typical relations of
circumcision and baptism, when we can put our fingers
on such verses as Col. ii. 11, and the explanatory verse
which follows it, — if we start to find the use of a strong
word (6p/a'&), where we should not have expected it
(1 Thess. v. 27), suggest the assumption that an Apostle
at times was not master of, or did not know the value
of, the words which he was using, — if, with reason, we
shrink from and even denounce all such instances of
prejudice and want of candour in our opponents ; yet
let us also remember that on the side of over-anxious
orthodoxy every instance could find its exact parallel,
and that we may be well reminded ourselves to take

Essay IX.} SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 439

good heed that we be not ensnared by perverted princi-
ples of interpretation that have thus long retained such
a baneful ascendency. On reviewing such a list, does
not the conviction arise that the " speaking the truth
in love " of the Apostle is a principle that needs anew
to be commended to every interpreter of Scripture ?
and does not also the melancholy reflection rise with it
that it is, perhaps, almost exclusively owing to the
long neglect of this principle that we must ascribe the
present state of parties, and their present attitudes of
increasing hostility and antagonism ?

12. But to pass from these preliminary comments
to the main question with which we are now more es-
pecially concerned, let us proceed to consider what,
judging from the experiences of the past and the pres-
ent, seems to be the most befitting and trustworthy
method of interpreting a Volume bearing such striking
and unique characteristics as we find in the Holy Scrip-
tores. " The answer, it can hardly be doubted, after
what has been said in the earlier portion of this essay,
must be — " the literal and historical method/' that
method which not only concerns itself with the simple
and grammatical meaning of the words, but also with
that meaning viewed under what may be termed, for
want of a better word, its historical relations, viz., as
illustrated by facts, modified by the context, substan-
tiated by the tenor of the Holy Book, and receiving
elucidation from minor specialities and details. On
the general propriety of such a method there will not
be, perhaps, any very great differences of opinion. On
the particular rules for carrying out the method we
must naturally expect considerable debate and disagree-
ment. For example, the seemingly comprehensive
and plausible rule which has been lately so much
pressed upon our attention — " Interpret Scripture like
any other book " — has already been seen to be at best
only of limited application, and to involve assumptions
■ — e. g. the resemblance of Scripture to other books in
respect of its having one and only one meaning — which
we have apparently had the fullest reasons for refusing
21*

490 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

to couce.de. Many just objections may also be urged
against other rules that have been proposed, especially
against those which, tacitly assuming an exaggerated
amount of figurative language in the Scriptures, tend
to exempt many portions of the inspired "Volume from
being regarded to mean what they actually say, and
many declarations from having assigned to them their
real force and significance. It is scarcely too much
to say, that most of these modern rules have involved
some sinister tendency, and have been based on very
thinly covered assumptions of an amount of error in
the Scriptures that is totally undemonstrable. In this
real difficulty of accepting what has hitherto been ad-
vanced, we will ourselves venture to propose for con-
sideration a few short canons of a very simple nature,
which, perhaps, may be found practically useful in
carrying out the method of interpretation above alluded
to. Not to be unnecessarily minute, we may first
specify, with illustrations, four rules or principles, two
of which relate rather more to the letter, two rather
more to the spirit and applications of it. Whether we
need any further rule will be best seen as we proceed.
The first rule is an extremely obvious one, yet a
rule which, if it had been always followed, would have
spared the Church a large amount of bitterness and
controversy. It is simply this, — Ascertain as clearly
as it may he possible the literal and grammatical mean-
ing of the words : in other words, ascertain first what is
the ordinary lexical meaning of the individual words ;
and next, what, according to the ordinary rules of syn-
tax, is the first and simplest meaning of the sentence
which they make up. . . . "We almost turn away with a
smile from such a thread-bare rule, and yet there is real-
ly no rule that has been less followed in the interpreta-
tion of the New Testament ; and none which in spite of
all boasted recent improvement, it is more necessary
calmly to restate and enhance. The full force of Her-
mann's almost indignant protest* against the principles,
or rather absence of all principles, on which the New

* In his edition of ' Tiger's Idioms,' p. 7S3.

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 491

Testament was interpreted during all the earlier portions
of his life, is now happily rendered somewhat unneces-
sary. A pupil of the great scholar was among the first
to restore the more reverent and accurate exegesis of
an earlier day, and since that time there has been a
continuance of efforts in the same direction. Still it
must be clear to every quiet observer, that there is a
strong desire evinced in many quarters to evade the
rule, and, under cover of escape from pedantry, to en-
deavour to make Scripture mean what we think, or
what we wish, not what it really says to ns. The mode
of procedure is simple, but effective. We are first
told, as Chrysostom told us long ago,* that we are to
catch the spirit of the author, and next invited to take
a step onward, and do what that great interpreter neither
did nor sanctioned — rectify by the aid of our own " veri-
fying faculty" the imperfect utterance of words of
which it is assumed wTe have caught the real and in-
tended meaning. 'No mode of interpretation is more
completely fascinating than this intuitional method,
none that is more thoroughly welcome to the excessive
self-sufficiency in regard to Scriptural interpretation
of wThich we are now having so much clear and so
much melancholy evidence. To sit calmly in our studies,
to give force and meaning to the faltering utterances
of inspired men, to correct the tottering logic of an
Apostle, to clear up the misconceptions of an Evange-
list, and to do this without dust and toil, without exposi-
tors and without Versions, without anxieties about the
meanings of particles, or humiliations at discoveries
of lacking scholarship, — to do all this, thus easily and
serenely, is the temptation held out ; and the weak, the
vain, the ignorant, and the prejudiced are clearly prov-
ing unable to resist it. Hence the necessity of a re-
turn to first principles, however homely they appear.

To set forth, if need be, still more clearly the prac-
tical value of the foregoing rule, let us take a few, al-
most chance-met examples, in which attention to gram-
matical accuracy often serves to remove difficulties or

* See Chrysostom, ' Comment, on Gal.', torn, x., p. 801 B (ed. Bened. 2).

492 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay Ii

misapprehensions of old standing, and that, too, in
questions of considerable importance. Let us observe,
for instance, how an attention to the force of a tense
removes all possible difficulty from such a verse as
Acts ii. 47, and adds a deepened significance to the
weighty words we find in such passages as 2 Cor. ii. 15.
How simply, yet how instructively, the simple parti-
ciples place the two classes before us, each under its
aspects of progress and development, each capable of
reversed attitudes and directions, but each at the time
of consideration wending its way ; the one silently
moving onward to light and to life, the other turning
its sad steps to darkness and to death ! The mere tense
is in itself a sermon and a protest : a sermon of blended
warning, consolation, and hope, to those who will pause
to meditate on its significance ; a protest, and a very
strong protest, against those who tell us that the exist-
ence of " two classes of men animated by two oppos-
ing principles," though the teaching of Scripture, " is
contrary to the teaching of experience." Let us ob-
serve again how, upon a due recognition of the very
same grammatical fact, the imputation of mistaken ex-
pectations in an Apostle (1 Thess. iv. 17) becomes al-
most wholly wiped away, — how some details of the
Last Supper (8ei7rvov jivo/xevov, John xiii. 2 : even with
the ordinary reading <yevofievov, the correct translation
removes difficulties) supposed to be conflicting or im-
possible to arrange, admit of easy and natural expla-
nation ; and how, to take a last instance, the innocent
but pointless imagery of the "cloven" tongues (Acts
ii. 3) passes at once into something pertinent and in-
telligible, and especially consonant with the workings
of that Eternal Spirit that divicleth " to every man
severally as He will." Under the application of similar
principles of accuracy, much of the verbal difficulty
disappears in Mark xi. 13, the true force of the apa
combined with the known fact of leaves being posterior
to the fruit, making the reader feel how it was the un-
seasonable display that led to the inference, and how
the Saviour drew nigh to see if an inference so just was

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION.

493

to be substantiated. To add two or three more instan-
ces : the great exegetical difficulty in John xx. 17 ap-
pears modified, if not removed, by taking into consid-
eration the tense of the verb airrov (not atyrj) ; a train
of profound speculation is suggested by the accurate
translation of one word in Col. ii. 15 (cnreichvo-diievos),
and relations, if not established, yet rendered probable
between the act specified in that mysterious clause and
the last three hours of darkness on Golgotha. The
recent controversy relative to the precept in Matt. v.
32 is almost settled when we pause to recognize the
difference between the nature of the predications re-
spectively conveyed by the participle with and the
participle without the article; and, to conclude with an
instance of a similar application of the same grammat-
ical principle, a very great amount of difficulty is re-
moved in the interpretation of the very obscure pas-
sage, 1 Pet. iii. 18 seq., if, besides adopting the true
reading irveufjuaTL (not rco Trvev/jLari, Iiec.) and referring
it to the Saviour's human spirit, we also observe that the
participle direiQriGaaiv involves no direct predication
("who were"), but partially discloses the reason of the
gracious procedure (" inasmuch as they were"), and
causes the difficulty ever felt in the specification of this
one class in some degree to disappear.

We now pass to a second rule, equally simple and
homely with that which we have just considered and
exemplified, and to which it may be considered to
form a kind of supplement or corollary. It is, .in fact,
involved in the very definition of the true method of
interpreting Scripture, and is simply as follows : — Illus-
trate, wherever possible, by reference to history, toj)og-
raphy, and antiquities.

On a rule so very natural and obvious little more
need be said than this, that the ordinary reader can
scarcely form any conception of the strangely different
aspects wmich many of the leading events in Scripture
— for example, many of the scenes in our Lord's life —
will be found to assume when the rule is carefully ob-
served. "We may especially remark this in reference

4Q4 Air)S T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

to illustrations from topography. To modern travellers
in Palestine the student of Scripture is under obliga-
tions which as yet have not by any means been fully
recognized. By the aid of their narrative we can
sometimes almost place ourselves in the position of the
first beholders, and see the whole scene of mystery or
mercy disclose itself before our eyes. The Triumphal
Entry becomes almost an event in which we ourselves
have borne a part when we read the narrative with all
the illustrations that have been furnished by the trav-
eller or the anticpary. We can feel ourselves almost
led to the spot where the opening view of the Holy
City called forth the first shouts of the jubilant multi-
tude ; we can realize the strange pause, and feel the
naturalness of the transition from meek triumph to
outgushing tears, when some turn in the rocky road
made the City of the Great King rise up suddenhv,
even* as the modern traveller tells us it still is found to
do, in all its full extent, and in all that stateliness and
beauty which was so soon to pass away. All the scenes
near to or connected with the Lake of Gennesareth will
be found to be brought home to us by any of the better
recent descriptions of the locality, in a manner and to
a degree that we could scarcely have conceived possi-
ble beforehand. We seem, for example, to appreciate,
for the first time in all its fulness, the allusion to the
"city on a hill" (Matt. v. 14) when we are told that
from the horned hill that has been lately almost agreed
on as the probable scene of the Sermon on the Mount,
the heights on which Safed stands are distinctly visible,
and form the striking object in the distant landscape.
We feel, again, the force of the /care^-rj in Luke viii. 23,
when we "recall what we may perhaps have read but
yesterday of the low-lying lake, and the deep-cut ravines
and gorges in the vast and naked plateau behind, down
which the storm- wind rushes as fiercely and as continu-
ously as of old.* We pause with interest on what
otherwise might have seemed a mere question of criti-

* See the remarkably interesting description in Dr. Thomson's 'The
Land and the Book/ vol. ii., p. 32.

Essay IX.] BCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 435

cal detail, when we read in the traveller's journal that
round a lew scattered ruins in a lonely wady still
lingers a name which brings up the Gergesa of the
first Evangelist's narrative, and which almost forces us
to muse on the extreme naturalness of the circumstance
that he who knew the lake so well should almost in-
stinctively be specific, and that the other two narrators
should use names of a wider reference, and more famil-
iarly known to their Greek or their Soman readers.*
How interesting again, in the hands of an interpreter
who will make it his duty to gather up all the items of
antiquarian information, is the narrative -of the Lord's
presence among the Doctors in the Temple, or even the
briefly mentioned circumstances of His hastened Burial !
How well an expositor like Meyer, who never fails to
nse this mode of illustration in a very telling way,
brings at once up before us the scene and circumstance
of the healing of the paralytic ! How the narrative
gains in freshness and interest ; how much nearer we
seem brought to the past ! Till we made use of this
form of illustration, the events of the Gospel history,
to use the words of a popular writer when comment-
ing on this very subject, are almost regarded as if they
had taken place in heaven : now they seem, as they
truly were, done on this very work-day earth we tread
on, under circumstances which the mind can be brought
fully to realize, and amid scenes which, if the bodily
eye has not beheld, the imagination can readily depict
to itself when stimulated and quickened by the narra-
tive of the graphic observer. The real and vital effect
that is thus produced on the heart, — especially of the
young, — the positive increase to our faith that is sup-
plied by this mode of illustration, has been far too
much undervalued by the modern interpreter.

A third rule of very great importance, and of a
very wide range of application, may be stated as fol-
lows : — Develop and enunciate the meaning under the
limitations assigned oy the context, or, in other words,
Interpret contextucdly.

t See Thomson, ' The Land and the Book,' vol. ii., p. S3 scq.

496 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

The value of tins rule and its true and real impor-
tance will be sensibly felt in all the various forms of
applying Scripture, and giving its doctrines or precepts
their true and proper significance. As we have al-
ready remarked, the present rule has rather more to do
with the spirit and general sentiment of the passage
than with the immediate elucidation of the letter. Its
application, however, is extremely varied and exten-
sive. In really numberless cases we have nothing to
guide us in our decisions except the connexion and the
general aspect of the passage. Whenever we are in
difficulty as to the justice or pertinence of a deduction,
or find, as we often do find, that grammatical consider-
ations leave us in a state of uncertainty, the context is
that which acts as the final arbiter. Our rule has thus
two great uses, — the one on the negative side, the other
on the affirmative. Under the first aspect, it serves to
restrain improper deductions or applications ; under
the second, it helps in deciding between two or more
competing interpretations, each supposed to be gram-
matically tenable. We will give a few examples of its
use and application in both cases. To take a first in-
stance, is it often that a text has been considered as
more thoroughly inclusive in its application than the
latter part of Rom. xiv. 23 (" for whatsoever is not of
faith is sin")? Is there any text that in certain con-
troversies is more frecjuently appealed to as final and
absolute ? The mere English reader sees in the very
argumentative mode in which the words are introduced,
a strong confirmation of the axiomatic character of the
words, and estimates their force, and extends their ap-
plication accordingly. The inaccuracy of the transla-
tion of the particle (Se) that connects the words with
what precedes seems to make certain what might
otherwise have appeared doubtful, and the clause is
used without hesitation in its full and unlimited force.
On the exact extent of the application of such a state-
ment, it may not be easy, nor indeed are we called
upon, to express any very definite opinion ; but with
regard to its plain, primary, and general meaning, we

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 497

can scarcely be in difficulty or hesitation. When we
look back at the context and consider the subject-mat-
ter, we may surely say, without fear of contradiction,
that the words in the passage before us were not meant
to be applied to every imaginable case, but to be re-
stricted to scruples or cases of conscience that bear
some analogy to the instances which the Apostle is
discussing. Take, again, on the other side, such a text
as Phil. ii. 12. The concluding clause is doubtless
most useful as a corrective to the many unlicensed
estimates of the course of the Divine procedure in
man's salvation, but to dwell upon such a text as in
any degree favouring the idea that, in the fullest sense
of the words, our salvation is in our own hands, is sim-
ply to ignore the important fact that the next verse
supplies the confirmatory ground (jap) of the com-
mand, by stating that it is God that supplies both the
will and the energy. To take a last instance : Can
anything really be more unreasonable than what has
been lately said about our practical neglect of certain
commands given by our Lord, especially such a com-
mand as Matt. v. 34 ? If we look only at the verse by
itself, dislocated from the context, it might reasonably
be thought to be a command which was designed to
include every form of adjuration, judicial or otherwise.
When, however, we look at the verse in its proper con-
nexion, the limitation becomes apparent, — "Ecttcd Be 6
\6yos vfjbobv, Nal vaiy Ov ov (ver. 37). Surely, without
any casuistry or subtilty, these last words, with their
plainly implied reference to general life and conversa-
tion, may be rightly urged by the interpreter as show-
ing the true and real aspects of the prohibition, and
may exempt the Saviour from the charge of having, by
an acceptance of the form of adjuration used by Caia-
phas (Hv et7ra?, Matt. xxvi. 64), practically violated his
own command.*

To exemplify the second aspect of the rule, we may
take almost any disputed text that suggests itself to the

* See Archdeacon France, ' The Example of Christ and Service of Christ,
p. 109.

493 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

memory, and we shall at once see the nse and applica-
tion of the rule. Let us take, for instance, the con-
tested words Sea Tf;<? Tetcvoyovias, 1 Tim. ii. 15. Here
we have at least two competing translations : the one
which gives the substantive a somewhat vague but
still plausible application, the other which connects it
with the great Promise. The article, especially when
thus present after a preposition, throws some weight in
the scale ; the context, in which the allusion is special-
ly to Gen. iii., and to the circumstances of woman's
first transgression, seems to decide the question. So,
again, to take another example out of the same Epistle,
if has long been doubted whether the command in ch.
v. 22, refers to Ordination or to Absolution. In favour
of the former there is a very general consent among
the oldest and best interpreters, and much may be
urged in its favour ; when, however, we carefully con-
sider the context, the preponderance seems so much on
the side of the latter, that, in spite of the amount of
authority on the other side, we shall perhaps find it
difficult to resist coming to the decision to which a
due observance of the rule of contextual interpretation
seems certainly to lead us. To take a last instance : the
exact meaning of the formula ZotaixaCpiv ra hiafyepovja,
used on two occasions by St. Paul (Rom. ii. 18, Phil. i.
10), has always been considered very doubtful, owing
to the differences of meaning which each of the two
verbs will fairly admit of. As far as lexical _ usage
goes, the words may be understood to imply a discrim-
ination between things that are different, or a proving,
and thence approval, of what is excellent. Which
meaning are we to adopt ? In the first passage where
the words are used we have but little to guide us either
way ; but in Phil. i. 9, the prayer for an increase of
love in knowledge and moral perception expressed in
the preceding verse seems to decide us in favour of the
latter view, — loVe being more naturally shown in ap-
proval of what is excellent, and so worthy of love, than
in a mere discrimination between elements or princi-
ples that involve distinctions or degrees of difference.

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 499

We now come to the fourth rule, which, as the very
terms in which it is expressed will sufficiently show,
is of an importance not inferior to that of any one of
those which have preceded. It may be thus expressed :
— In every passage elicit the fall significance of all
details.

The rule seems to speak for itself. Under one aspect
it bears a kind of supplemental relation to the first and
second rules; under another it will be found to assist
in applications of the third rule, as being frequently
concerned with the meanings of connecting particles,
and so with the contextual relations of the passage, and
its general logical or historical drift. It thus, though
at first sight a mere rule of detail and of the letter, has
much to do with the spirit of the passage, and will be
found eminently useful in suggesting deductions. As
the third rule served to regulate the applications of
Scripture, so this fourth rule will be found to have
much to do with the incidental inferences which may
be drawn from it. Further comments seem unneces-
sary. Let this one remark, however, be made, — that
the rule, besides being obviously a rule of common
sense, is really, in the case of the Scripture, a rule of
necessity and duty. If we believe the Scripture to be
inspired of God, then it surely follows that we must
never rest satisfied till we have elicited the fullest and
most complete significance of every item of the heav-
enly Revelation thus mercifully vouchsafed to us. It
becomes positive unfaithfulness not to dwell upon every
clause, every word, every particle, if we have any real
and heart-whole belief that what we are permitted to
read are indeed, as they were rightly termed by an
Apostolical Father, "the true sayings of the Holy
Ghost." It is not that we are hampered with any
theory of verbal or mechanical inspiration; it is not
that we completely sympathize with the somewhat re-
stricted view (noble, however, in its very restrictedness)
of a great Biblical critic* of our own clay, that every
individual word of Scripture is written by the very

* Dr. Tregelles, Preface to 'The Book of Revelation.'

500

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

linger of God; it is simply because we know that in
every case words are the appointed media of ideas and
sentiments, and believe, in the case of Scripture, that
both the ideas are heaven-sent and the sentiments in-
spired. Knowing this, and believing this, can we deem
it otherwise than our highest duty and privilege to
exhaust the fullest significance of the outward letter,
when it contains enshrined in it an inward spirit thus
holy and Divine ?

To come to examples. The first and largest class
of cases which may be alluded to, as exemplifying the
value and usefulness of the rule, are those in which
much depends on the true force and meaning of the
various connecting, particles, whether of cause, infer-
ence, or consequence. These, however, we must be
content merely to allude to, as examples of this kind
can scarcely be adduced without fuller remarks on the
general bearings of the passage than our limits will
permit. Let one instance, however, be given, and that
in one of the most important of the doctrinal passages
of the New Testament, — Phil. ii. 6. Here it is scarcely
too much to say that the interpretation turns mainly on
the proper recognition of the use and force of dXXa
when following a negative, and on the remembrance
that in such cases it marks a full and clear antithesis
between two members of a clause, "not this — but that."
Apply this to the passage before us, and we see that
the words ofy dpirayiibv rj^aaro k. t. X. must be under-
stood to convey some idea distinctly antithetical to
aXXa eavrov SicevcDae, and that no interpretation can
be safely regarded as admissible in which this condition
is not fully satisfied. Let this one example be sufficient ;
but let it carry with it both a suggestion and a protest :
a suggestion, that in many a contested passage similar
methods of grammatical generalization may be applied
with equal simplicity and success ; and a protest against
mere assumptions that the particles of the New Testa-
ment can ever be safely neglected, or quietly disposed
of as mere " excrescences " of a vitiated style.

A second and laro;e class of instances to which the

Essay IX.l SCEIPTUEE, AXD ITS INTEEPEETATION.

501

rule applies, are passages in which simple and com-
paratively insignificant details are found, when properly
considered, to supply some fact of real historical inter-
est. The Gospels, especially, supply us with a vast list
of striking and suggestive examples. To name only a
few. Of what importance, historically considered, is
the simple addition of the word 'Iepova-aXrjp, in Luke
v. 17, as showing the quarter whence the spies came,
and marking, throughout this portion of the narrative,
that most of the charges and machinations came, not
from the natives of Galilee, but from emissaries from
a hostile centre ! What a picture does the fy irpowycov
avrovs of Mark x. 32 present to us of the Lord's bearing
and attitude in this His last journey, and how fully it
explains the iOa/uLpovvTo which follows ! How expres-
sive is the single word teadtffievat (Matt, xxvii. 61) in
the narrative of the Lord's burial, as depicting the
stupefying grief that left others to do what the sitters-
by might in part have shared in ! How full of wondrous
significance is the notice of the state of the abandoned
grave-clothes in the rock-hewn sejmlchre (John xx. 7) !
what mystery is there in the recorded position and atti-
tude of the heavenly watchers (ver. 12) ! What a real
force there is in the simple numeral in the record of the
two mites which the widow cast into the treasury! she
might have given one (in spite of what Schoettgen says
to the contrary) ; she gave her all. How the frightful
ea of the demoniac" (Luke iv. 31) tells almost pictorially
of the horror and recoil which was ever felt by the
spirits of darkness when they came in proximity to our
Saviour (comp. Matt. viii. 29 ; Mark i. 23, v. 7 ; Luke
viii. 28), and what light and interest it throws upon the
kclI IBobv k. t. X. of Mark ix. 20 in the case of the de-
moniac boy ! Again, of what real importance is the
simple iropevOeh both in 1 Peter iii. 19 and 22 ! How
it hints at a literal and local descent in one case, and
how it enables us to cite an Apostle as attesting the
literal and local ascent in the other ! When we com-
bine the latter with the avefepero of Luke xxiv. 51
(a passage undoubtedly genuine), and pause to mark

KQO AIDS T0 FAITXI- [Essay IX.

the tense, can we share in any of the modern difficulties
that have been felt about the actual, and so to say
material, nature of the heavenly mystery of the Lord's
Ascension ?

We pause, but only to pass onward by a very slight
transition to a third class of passages in which impor-
tant deductions may be made from details which an
ordinary reader might think of the most trivial or acci-
dental nature. Who, for instance, would take much
notice of the order in which certain provinces are
enumerated in 1 Peter i. 1? and yet, from the general
direction the order involves (East to West), the locality
of the writer has been surmised at, and an item supplied
toward settling the geographical question in chap. v. 13
of the same Epistle. Who, again, would be likely to
pause much on the fact that Samaria was placed in
order before Galilee in Luke xvii. 11? and yet, unless
we adopt a very unnatural explanation of the passage,
the order may be considered as placing the verse in
connection with John xi. 54, and as pointing to the in-
teresting fact that the last journey of our Lord was a
kind of farewell-circuit, which, beginning from Ephraim,
extended through Samaria, Galilee, and Persea, and
terminated at Bethany and Jerusalem. Few perhaps
would at first sight be inclined to pause long on the
words ep-%Q{ievos dirb aypov used both by St. Mark
(ch. xv. 21), and St. Luke (ch. xxiii. 26) in reference to
Simon of Cyrene ; and yet they supply some ground
for drawing the inference that, in the earlier part of
the day referred to, field-work had been done, and con-
sequently that it was not Msan 15, but Nisan 14, and
that thus, even according to the Synoptical Evangelists,
the Lord celebrated the Last Supper on the day pre-
ceding the legal Passover. Again, would not the term
"green grass" (Mark vi. 39) seem to imply but little?
and yet this specification of the graphic Evangelist
exactly harmonizes with what wre learn from another
Evangelist (John vi. 4), viz., that the time was spring,
and further renders the supposition that the rich plain
at the north-eastern corner of the Lake of Gennesareth

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 593

was the scene of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in
every respect worthy of attention. Lastly, the agitated
words of Mary Magdalene to St. Peter (John xx. 2)
might be thought of very little use in helping to decide
between conflicting views on the harmony of this por-
tion of the narrative: yet from the plural oiBafiev, when
compared with olBa, ver. 13, we seem justified in draw-
ing the important inference that though St. John only
specifies Mary Magdalene as having gone to the tomb,
he was nevertheless perfectly well aware, that, even as
she herself implies, there were others who went with
her to do honour to the Holy Body.

Our four rules of interpretation have now at length
been stated and illustrated. That they are important,
and of considerable practical use, will perhaps have
now been made plain by the examples which have
been adduced. From these we shall probably have per-
ceived that the rules have not only their positive but
their negative uses ; and that, while the first two rules
are serviceable in tending to ensure precision and stim-
ulate research, the second and third are no less useful
in restraining prejudice, and checking that impatient
and over-hasty method of reading the Scripture which
will not pause to seek in the text for the associations
that are really to be found there. Further, the rules
proposed have apparently the merit of being simple
and obvious. They involve no refinements, and may
be expressed in very few words : all the four being, in
fact, reducible to one general canon — Interpret gram-
matically\ historically, contextually , and minutely.

But the real point of interest has yet to be dis-
cussed.

On carefully considering the nature and character-
istics of the above rules, it must be plain to the thought-
ful reader that, though useful and adequate exponents
of the grammatical and historical method of interpret-
ing Scripture, they are still rules that might be applied
with nearly equal success to the interpretation of any
other collection, of ancient documents. There is noth-
ing in any one of them that makes it especially a rule

504

•AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX-

of interpreting Scripture. We have realty to a certain
extent been agreeing to interpret Scripture like any
other book. It is true that we have advocated a greater
punctiliousness than would be thought necessary even
for interpreting Plato or Aristotle ; it is true that we
have pleaded for a minuteness of attention to detail,
which in the case of an ordinary Greek writer would
be tiresome and pedantic ; still there is plainly no
feature in any one of the rules that can fairly be con-
sidered as of such an unique character as we should ex-
pect to find in the rules for the interpretation of an
unique book ; and, if our premises are right that Scrip-
ture is really unlike any other book in numerous points,
we should certainly expect to find in numerous points
that our present rules are insufficient and incomplete.

And so we find them.

There are at least three large classes of passages in
which they fail in ascertaining for us the true mind of
Scripture ; and these very failures, it will be observed,
force upon us additional rules, gradually more and
more of an unique character, till we find ourselves at
last frankly accepting the yet lacking general rule of
true Scriptural interpretation. But let us not antici-
pate. We have said there are at least three classes of
passages for which the above rules are not sufficient.
These may be defined roughly, as (1) passages of gen-
eral difficulty, where the context gives us no means of
deciding between two or more competing translations,
of equal correctness in point of logic or grammar ; (2)
passages of doctrinal difficulty, where either the tenor
of the declaration is doubtful, or where opposing de-
ductions have been made as to the doctrine actually
conveyed ; (3) passages of what maybe termed theolog-
ical difficulty, i. e. where the fact specified or the prin-
ciple referred to involves mysterious relations between
things human and Divine which are at best very im-
perfectly known to us. In all these three cases, espec-
ially the two last, the rules we have discussed, though
of the greatest use in clearing away preliminary diffi-
culties, often leave the main difficulty untouched. Let

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 595

us illustrate this by a few examples, and feel out by
degrees for the further rule or rules that are still need-
ed for our guidance.

(1.) LetTus take for our first example a clause from
a passage of general difficulty, and indisputably of
great importance, the opening verses of St. Paul's
Epistle to the Ephesians. In the third verse much
turns on the exact meaning of the peculiar term iv rot?
eirovpavloLs, and (to narrow the question by leaving
unnoticed obviously untenable interpretations) on a de-
cision of the question, — whether, with the Greek ex-
positors, we are to give the words an ethical reference,
or whether, with the Oriental versions, we are to con-
ceive the words only to refer to locality. The context
does not seem definitely to favour either view ; and
grammatical considerations, it is almost unnecessary to
add, leave the matter equally undecided. In other
words, our first and third rules, on which, in all cases
of local difficulty, we almost wholly rely, here fail to
guide us. How then are we to decide ? If we turn to
the best modern commentaries we shall find, and right-
ly find, that the local meaning is now very generally
adopted, such seeming certainly to be the meaning in
the other passages in the Epistle (ch. i. 20, ii. 6, iii. 10,
vi. 12) where the formula occurs. In a word the usus
scvibendh of the author has decided the question. . . .
The meaning of the difficult and similarly ambiguous
expression aToixela rov koct/iov (Gal. iv. 3) is usually
decided, though conversely, on the same principle ; a
comparison of the passage with Col. ii. 8, 20 seeming
to cause the arguments in favour of the ethical mean-
ing (rudimentary religious teaching of a non-Christian
character) decidedly to preponderate. . . Somewhat
similar principles are used in deciding on the meaning
of the doubtful irapaQi^v {Bee. nrapaKaraOrjK^v) in 1
-Tim. vi. 20 compared with 2 Tim. i. 12, 14. . . In a
much more difficult passage to which we have already
alluded, Col. ii. 15, a great part of the obscurity rests
on the first clause, and especially on the meaning of
the word aTrezSvadnevos. In spite of the contextual ar-

50G AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

gument that may be drawn from the meaning of the
associated participle Opia^^evaa^, the translation of the
Vulgate (" exspolians ") and indeed of our own Author-
ized Version, is now commonly given up by careful
scholars in favour of the more grammatically accurate,
but certainly at first sight less intelligible " exuens se "
of the Claromontane and Coptic Versions. "What has
led to this decision ? To a certain extent grammatical
precision, but mainly the undoubted use of the word
by the Apostle a few verses later (Col. iii. 9) in the
second of the two senses just specified.

But the examples above alluded to have had main-
ly to do with verbal difficulties. Exactly the same,
however, might be shown in cases of difficulties in the
sentiment conveyed. Of this let 1 Pet. iii. 19 and ch.
iv. 6 be briefly specified as examples. They are sister-
texts, and so clearly allude to a kindred mystery, that
no interpreter of the one passage would fail to refer to
the other and be guided by it, as supplying him with
the most natural and indeed authoritative illustration.
If, for example, he felt swayed by the local term iro-
pevOeh in the first passage, he would probably find
much difficulty in believing that the term ve/cpols in
the second passage was to be referred to the spiritually
dead, those " dead in trespasses and sins " (Eph. ii. 1),
rather than to the dead in the ordinary and physical
meaning of the term. If one passage has a definite
and local reference, so apparently has the other. The
same may be said of the excessively difficult passages
Col. i. 19 and ch. ii. 9, the latter of which supplies the
only authoritative hint for the translation of the former.

Now to what do all these examples point but to
this, — the admission that difficulties, even of a very
serious nature, are often to be removed by attending
to the usus scribendi of the author ; or, in other words,
the plain and serviceable rule emerges to view, — Let
the luriter interpret himself.

But it will certainly be said, this is exactly what is
or ought to be done in the case of any other writer
whose precise meaning wTe wished to ascertain. True ;

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 597

but the difference of the subject-matter makes the two
cases really very far from identical. In the one case
the writer may be dealing with subjects in which the
assumption of a regular and consistent way of express-
ing himself in reference to them may be deemed per-
fectly reasonable and natural. In the other case, the
assumption really amounts to nearly as much as this, —
the expression of a conviction, that in discussing sub-
jects often transcending human faculties, and in com-
municating the mysteries of a revelation from God, the
writer is consistent with himself. The rule above-men-
tioned, in the case of one of the New Testament writers,
is really little less than an express recognition of a gen-
eral and pervading inspiration, — an influence which,
contrary to what might have been looked for in the
case of a writer on subjects above man's natural pow-
ers, kept the writer always in harmony with himself,
and his words always self-explanatory and consistent.

(2.) But, to pass onward, let us next observe what
amplifications of the rule are suggested by examples
of the second class of Scriptural difficulties. Let us be-
gin with a passage of very great difficulty, principally
of a doctrinal nature, and one in which interpreters
have arrived at widely different results, — the descrip-
tion of the Man of Sin in 2 Thess. ii. 3 seq. Here no
interpreter would probably fail to refer to the parallel
supplied by Daniel (ch. xi. 36 seq.), on the one hand,
and to the description of the characteristics of Anti-
christ as given by St. John in his first Epistle (ch. ii.
22, iv. 3 seq.), on the other. The expositor would in
fact seek for his most trustworthy elucidation of the
passage before him in two books of Scripture written
by two authors, a Prophet and an Evangelist, between
whose dates there was probably nearly as great an in-
terval as 600 years. Does not this point to a tacit am-
plification of the preceding rule, and does it not, in ef-
fect, amount to this, — Where possible, let Scripture in-
terpret itself, or, in other words, Interpret according to
the analogy of Scripture f

If this be stated fairly and correctly, is it not clear

50g AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX

that the assumptions that were practically involved in
the former rule, Let the writer interpret himself, become
still more significant and suggestive? According to the
obvious tenor of the latter rule, Scripture appears tac-
itly to be recognized as an organized and harmonious
whole, all parts of which are so quickened by the same
life and animated by the same Spirit, that no sentiment
of any one of the Sacred Writers can ever receive a
more convincing and trustworthy interpretation than
that which is supplied by the sentiments or expres-
sions of another. This, properly considered, practically
amounts to an admission of the inspiration of Scripture
of the most clear and decided kind.

But let us take yet one step further, and consider
the interpretation of a clause in another passage of doc-
trinal difficulty which all will agree in deeming of the
most profound importance. What is the true meaning
of the words irpodTOTOicos irdar}^ /crlc-eco? (Col. i. 15) in
their reference to the Eternal Son ? Here we have two
interpretations, widely different, yet both grammati-
cally tenable, and one (the second) considered merely
with regard to grammar, perhaps even obvious and
plausible. According to the one interpretation, our
Lord would be represented as " begotten before every
creature," and the reference would be to the eternal
generation of Christ ; according to the other, it would
be " first-begotten of every creature," or, as in the Syr-
iac, " of all creatures," — prior to them in origin, yet a
created being like themselves. Which view are we to
take ? Grammar is silent, the context difficult and not
decisive (the following iv dvrco is probably not " hy
Him"), the reasoning deep and mysterious. The an-
swer of every calm and attentive reader of Scripture
will probably be promptly given, — " Undoubtedly the
former." But why ? " Because the whole tenor of
Scripture is opposed to the latter view." But how can
this tenor of Scripture be confidently stated ? on what
does the assertion rest ? Is it the result of actual and
rigorous investigation of the whole of Scripture, or mere
reliance on the opinion of the safe side ? " No, neither

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATIOX. 599

the one nor the other." Then on what is the adoption'
of the former of the two views really based ? " On the
teaching of the Creeds, as the authoritative expositions
of the true tenor of Scripture." In other words, the
example has at last led us to the full expression of the
rule that has been gradually disclosing itself. Scripture
itself has at length taught us, by the gentle leading of
its own difficulties, the true and vital principle of all
really Scriptural exegesis, — Interpret according to the
analogy of Faith.

And this is the rule. This the rule — carped at, as
it has been, by the sceptical, disregarded by the self-
confident, violated by party bias, slighted by the dis-
loyal, and derided by the profane — to which we have
at last come, almost by an inductive process, and with
the aid of which, in conjunction with preceding rules,
we may even venture to draw near to the third class of
difficulties, — the great and the deep things of God.

(3.) Into these, however, we cannot now even at-
tempt to enter. Our limits, wholly preclude us from
discussing passages of which each would require not
only a lengthened consideration of the context, but also
the introduction of details which would be unsuitable
in a general essay like the present. To show, however,
what class of passages we are alluding to, we will pause
simply to specify a few that now suggest themselves,
and may partly justify the distinctions above laid down.
In addition to 1 Pet. iii. 10 and others, above alluded
to, which perhaps may seem to belong more exactly to
the present class, let us specify Matt. xxvi. 29, xxvii. 52 ;
Mark xiii. 32 ; Luke x. 18 ; John xxi. 22 ; Bom. viii. 19
seq., 26, ix. IS seq. ; 1 Cor. iii. 13; vi. 3, xv. 28 seq. ; 2
Cor. v. 2 sea., xii. 2 seq. ; Eph. i. 12, 23, ii. 2 ; Col. i. 19,
20, 24; 1 Thess. iv. 15 seq. ; Heb. iv. 12, vi. 4; 2 Pet.
ii. 4, iii. 10 ; Jucle 6, 9 ; and, it is necessary to add, the
greater part of the Book of Revelation.

On one of these passages, however, and on one only,
let us make a passing comment, and that because the
passage has been more than once alluded to as a cor-
rective and counterpoise to what are termed high views

510 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

of the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage
is Mark xiii. 32, the words of which, whether considered
in reference to the occasion or to the context, merit, in-
deed, some higher description than "simple and touch-
ing," and are, as they have always been deemed to be,
among the most deep and solemn that have ever been
uttered in the ears of man. Yet if we interpret them
according to the analogy of Faith, and, let us not fail
to add, according to the very implied limitations of the
passage itself, we can feel no difficulty as to their true
meaning. In the very silent logic of the associated
terms, the ovSefc, the ol dyyeXoc ol Iv ovpava?, we feel a
kind of implied circumscription, which seems to prepare
us for the sense in which we are to understand the cul-
minating ovSe 6 v 16$, " none in earth, none in heaven,
nay not even the Son," in so far as He shares any ele-
ment in common with either, in so far as He vouch-
ees to assume finiteness and corporeity. "What we in-
stinctively surmise as we read the passage, the analogy
of Scripture and Faith assures us of, — that when the
Lord thus spake to His four chosen Apostles, He does
virtually assure us that He was so truly man, that when
He assumed that nature He assumed it with all its lim-
itations, and that in that nature He vouchsafed to know
not what as Go.d He had known from everlasting. Why
are we to be deterred from this ancient interpretation,
why are we to obelize the words with Ambrose,* or
regard them as a conventional statement with Augus-
tine^ when they admit of an explanation so simple,
and so consonant with all that we are told of Him who
vouchsafed not only to be incarnate, but to increase in
wisdom, and to be a veritable sharer in all the sinless
imperfections of humanity ? Is there really any greater
difficulty in such a passage than in John xi. 33, 35,
where we are told that those holy cheeks were still wet
with human tears while the loud voice was crying,
"Lazarns, come forth ! "

13. This portion of our subject has thus at length
come to its close. The four rules of interpreting Scrip-

* 'De Fide,' v. 10 (193). + « De Geucsi contr. Munich,' i. 22 (34).

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 511

ture have received the supplement they lacked. The
canon which embraced them has now the addition neces-
sary to make it applicable to those passages where the
difficulties are of a doctrinal nature, and, further, even
to those still deeper passages where the difficulties arise
from the profound nature of the revelation, and from the
allusions such passages may contain to mysteries beyond
our full powers of comprehension. Scripture interpre-
tation is now not merely to be grammatical, historical,
contextual, and minute, but it is to be also — according
to the analogy of Faith.

Against such a rule, we are well aware, many an ar-
gument will be urged, many an exception will be taken.
We have been told, and we shall often be told again,
that to interpret by the Mcene or the Athanasian Creed
is not only to mar the simplicity of Scripture, by bring-
ing it in contact with what is artificial and technical,
but consciously to involve ourselves in a plain and pat-
ent anachronism.

To such mere assertions, for mere assertions they re-
ally are, it is not necessary, after what has been said, to
return any formal answer. It may be enough to make
the two following remarks, and with them this portion
of the subject shall be concluded: — First, the charge
of anachronism may be readily disposed of by observing
that, in thus interpreting Scripture, we are really inter-
preting it by what, in a certain sense, is anterior to it,
viz. the principles of that faith of which Scripture is
itself the exponent. Ante mare fluctus. What right
have we to assume that all the early Christian preach-
ing was only the outpouring of " attachment to a re-
cently departed friend and Lord " ? With what justice
can we say that the whole of Christianity was con-
tained in the words, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou mayest be saved," when, even in the very ear-
liest of an Apostle's letters, there seems satisfactory ev-
idence (comp. 1 Thess. v. 1, 2 Thess. ii. 5) that deeper
things were communicated orally to the earliest Chris-
tian converts than were afterwards committed to writ-
ing ? Most justly, then, has it been observed that, when

512 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

we thus appeal to the principles of the faith for our
guidance in expounding Scriptural difficulty, we are in-
terpreting, not by " the result of three or four centuries
of controversy," but by appeals to fixed principles of
Christian doctrine, the greater part of which were
known, believed, and acted on in the very earliest age
of the Gospel.* In succeeding centuries these funda-
mental truths may have been couched in terms of great-
er scientific exactness ; the various controversies of the
times may have caused the Church to put forth her doc-
trines in forms more technically accurate or more logic-
ally precise, but the substance was the same fromlhe
very first, and it is on that substance that our interpre-
tation of Scripture is really based, it is to that essential
truth of which the Church is a pillar, that we make our
natural and reasonable appeal.

The second remark is this, that those who are much
opposed to us in their estimate of the character and in-
spiration of Scripture, really in effect admit the prin-
ciple we are contending for. To say nothing of the oc-
currence on their pages of such terms as " the analogy
of Scripture," when the subject is the best mode of
interpreting it, or of the silent but important admission
that the principle which " enables us to apply the words
of Christ and His Apostles" is neither more nor less
than "the analogy of faith," f — to pass over all these
tacit and almost instinctive recognitions of the one great
truth (1 Tim. iii. 15), from which all that has been said
above comes by way of legitimate deduction, let us
merely take the rule which others have laid down, and
fairly consider whether the recommendation to '; inter-
pret Scripture from itself" is not in effect and substance
plainly identical with much that has been already advo-
cated in these pages. Such a rule, in the first place,
involves the very important assumption which wre have
above alluded to, viz., that Scripture is consistent with
itself, even when such consistency might be appealed

* Sec Moberly, Preface to ' Sermons on the Beatitudes,' p. Iii. seq.y where
this argument is put forward with great clearness and force.
+ Sue 'Essays and Reviews,' p. 41 G.

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 5^3

to as a very evidence of its Divine origin ; and in the
second place, after every possible limitation — viz., that
we are to understand it to mean interpreting " like by
like," — such a rule is still, and must remain, based on
the recognition of the sound and proper principle that
Scripture difficulty must be explained consistently with
Scripture truth. Of this truth the Creeds, especially
the two shorter, are not only compendious but author-
itative abstracts, summarily vouched for by the keeper
of our archives and the upholder of their integrity, the
Catholic Church of Christ. The same authority might
justify us in similarly applying much of her own his-
tory and traditions as illustrative of Holy Scripture, if
even not deserving the title of an aid in its interpreta-
tion. It may be sufficient, however, to claim the Creeds
as authoritative summaries of Scripture, and so author-
itative guides in interpreting Scripture, being in fact
themselves the epitome of that from which it has been
properly conceded that Scripture ought to be illustrated
and expounded.

§4-

14. The main department of our subject may now
be considered as brought to its natural conclusion.
Two portions, however, still remain which require of
us a passing notice. They are, in fact, the two ex-
tremes between which the portion of the subject on
which we have been recently engaged seems to lie
midway; the one relating exclusively to the laws of
the letter, the other to the principles of applying the
spirit, — in a word, the Grammar of the Sacred Text,
on the one hand, and the various practical applica-
tions of the fully-ascertained meaning of that Text on
the other. A few words shall be said on each of these
portions of our subject, but a few words only, there
being by no means that amount of misconception and
error in reference to either of these portions of the
subject as to that which lies between them. Still a
few comments may be profitably made on each.

Let us speak first of the application of Scripture, as
22*

514 AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

this seems most naturally to follow a discussion on the
interpretation of it, — application, in fact, being nothing
more than interpretation in its ultimate and most ex-
tended form.

The different forms which the application of Scrip-
ture may assume are obviously as many and as diver-
sified as the aspects of Scripture itself. We have
already seen that Scripture involves a system of proph-
ecies and types ; we have recognized, also, that it
contains a wide range of double meanings even in
simply historical passages ; and, lastly, we have found
it to be so pervaded by the Spirit of God, that not
only in its sentiments, but sometimes even in its very
words and expressions (see above, p. 468), it is found
to involve a deep and a Divine significance. These
three characteristics at once lead to three correspond-
ing modes of application, on each of which, as being
one of the three more edifying and ju'actically useful
modes of applying Scripture, a few comments shall be
made.

I. The subject of Prophecy and Typology is, un-
doubtedly, one of difficulty, and in its practical bear-
ings and expansions still more so. It is extremely
difficult to lay down any rules, and yet it is very
precarious to attempt such methods of applying
Scripture without some external guidance. In the
case of unfulfilled prophecy, especially, the temptation
to indulge in unauthorized speculation is often exces-
sive. Uneducated and undisciplined minds are com-
pletely carried away by it, and even the more devout
and self-restrained frequently give themselves up to
sad extravagances in this form of the application of
God's Word. The result is, only too often, that better
educated and more logical minds, in recoiling from
what they justly deem unlicensed and preposterous,
pass over too much into the other extreme, and deem
Prophecy in every form as a subject far too doubtful
and debateable ever to fall within the province of
Scripture application. It is, we fear, by no means too
much to say, that a great part of the present melan-

Essay IX. J SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 515

choly scepticism as to Messianic prophecy is due to
the almost indignant reaction which has been brought
about by the excesses of apocalyptic interpretation.
The utmost caution, then, is justly called for. Nay, it
perhaps would be well if unfulfilled prophecy were
never to be applied to any other purposes than those
of general encouragement and consolation. We may
often be thus made to feel that we are in the midst of
a providential dispensation, that though our eyes may
be holden as to the relations of contemporaneous
events to the future, whether of the Church or of the
world, we may yet descry certain bold and broad out-
lines, certain tendencies and developments, which may
make us wend our way onward, thoughtfully and
circumspectly, — wayfarers who gaze with ever-deepen-
ing interest on the contour of the distant hills, even
though we cannot clearly distinguish the clustered
details of the nearer and separating plain. But though
it may thus be wise only to notice unfulfilled prophecy
in the broadest and most general way, it is far other-
wise with applications or illustrations derived from
what has either obviously received its fulfilment, or,
like Deut. xxviii., is so plainly still receiving it, that
doubt becomes unreasonable and impossible. In this
last case, for instance, the mere existence of such a
prophecy has been with reason appealed to as almost
sufficient in itself to establish the inspiration of the
whole associated Pentateuch. More particularly can
every form of Messianic prophecy be dwelt upon by
the conscientious interpreter. This, indeed, is the
loftiest and most blessed application of prophecy, for
purposes of edification, that man can make. Hereby,
more especially, are we permitted to realize all the
deep harmonies between the earlier and the later dis-
pensation. In the light shed by Messianic prophecy,
the two covenants seem no longer disunited, but one.
The Old Testament as it "telleth of Christ that should
come," blends insensibly into the New, that "telleth of
Christ that is come," * until both become recognized

* Compare Hooker, 'Laws of Eccl. Polity,' 1. 14. 4, vel i., p. 270 (ed.
Keble).

516 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

as organically connected parts of one Divine whole.
The Scripture is at length seen and felt to be what it
truly is — one living Book ; one, because pervaded by
the holy presence of one ever-blessed Lord ; living,
because ever teaching of Him who Himself is the
Life, and whose " Life is the light of men."

In the case of types, and all the varied forms of
supposed typical relations between the Old and New
Testaments, some greater latitude of application may
perhaps be permitted. Much, probably, will have to
be lost to that which must sometimes be the only
guide — the "spiritual understanding" (Col. i. 9) of the
expounder. Even in such cases, however, it will be
found desirable to recognize some general fixed prin-
ciples. Special rules it is never very easy to lay clown ;
but perhaps it may be said that in tracing out types,
the prudent expounder will do well to observe, or at
any rate conform to, the general spirit of these two
rules : First, not positively to assert the existence of
typical relations between persons, places, or things,
unless it should appear, either directly or by reason-
able inference, that such relations are recognized in
Scripture; Secondly, even in the case of apparently
reasonable inferences from Scripture, not to press the
typical allusion unless we have the consent of the best
of the earlier expositors. The use and general bearing
of each rule shall be briefly exemplified.

The first rule, it will be easily seen, will be
especially useful in lopping away all those supposed
typical meanings which, as we have already seen,
some even of the soundest of the early interpreters
were ever discovering even in the simplest incidents of
the Old Testament. By this rule, for instance, the
mystical or typical meaning assigned to Rahab's
scarlet thread, or to Lot's two daughters, old as they
may be, and belonging, as these two cases really do, to
the sub-apostolic age, must still be regarded as at best
only precarious fancies. By the same rule, too, many
of the exaggerated attitudes of popular typology will
become beneficially restrained. While we may enlarge

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 5^7

with all confidence not only on such undoubted his-
torical types as Adam (Rom. v. 14 ; 1 Cor. xv. 45), or
Melchizedec (Heb. vii. 3) of one kind, and the Flood
(1 Pet. iii. 21), or the Eed Sea (1 Cor. x. 2) of another,
but even on such clear instances as the rite of circum-
cision (Col. ii. 11), the paschal lamb (1 Cor. v. 7), the
functions of the High-priest on the Day of Atonement,
and other things alluded to by the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, we may feel very suspended
in our judgment as to such an ancient and, at first
sight, plausible type as Egypt and the evil world.
The acknowledged typical relations of Canaan and the
Christian's heavenly home, and of the Reel Sea and
Baptism, might seem to throw back some probability
on such a relation between the world which the Chris-
tian renounces and the place from which Israel was
called ; but such a type could never be insisted on : no
argument could ever be built upon it, nor could it
ever claim to be ranked really higher than an ancient
and ingenious fancy. Nay, even such an almost self-
evident type as Isaac, with all its startling coincidences
of place and circumstances (Gen. xxii. 6 ; John xix.
17), can scarcely be regarded as definitely resting on
the authority of Scripture (Heb. xi. 19 does not seem
to prove it), but can only justly be regarded as an
inference from its general tenor, though, on the other
hand, no reasonable expounder in the world could fail
to accept it as an example that rests on the instinctive
and unanimous consent of the Church.

We thus are brought to our second rule, and can
now see that what otherwise might have seemed super-
fluous cannot very readily be dispensed with. The
united judgment of the earliest and soundest expositors
is, we perceive, not wholly to be set aside ; the tradi-
tion of the Church not to be rejected when the infer-
ence from Scripture might seem of a doubtful or sus-
pended character. And if the rule be thus useful in its
affirmative, undoubtedly it is so in its negative aspects,
as serving to repress mere conjecture and ingenuity.
To conclude with an instance of its negative use, we

518 AID9 T0 FAITH. [Essay IX

may allude to an ingenious attempt to connect the cir-
cumstances mentioned by all the four Evangelists in ref-
erence to our Lord and Barabbas, with the sortition in
reference to the two goats (Lev. xvi. 5 seq.) on the Day
of Atonement. At first there seems a strange persua-
siveness in the suggested relations of type to antitype;
nay, there might be thought to be some Scriptural basis
in the similar comparisons that are indicated or hinted
at (comp. ch. xiii. 11, 12) in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The opinion of the early writers here interposes a salu-
tary caution. We find that the ceremonies connected
with the scape-goat, and the somewhat similar ceremo-
nies in the cleansing of the leper (Lev. xiv. 2 seq.) were
almost unanimously referred alone to Christ, — to Christ,
as both dying for us, and, by his Resurrection, living
again for evermore. The circumstances of the case, it
wTas justly argued, required a type which, to be com-
plete, must necessarily be two-fold, and which, to be
fully significant, must present two aspects, as it were,
of the same antitypal mystery. If it be admitted that
the scape-goat can, by inference, be deemed a Scrip-
tural type of Christ, it is probable that we shall reject
the ingenious parallel, and accept the view taken by
the earlier expositors.

The substance of the preceding remarks is this, —
not, by any means, that the typical relations between
the Old and New Testaments are few and limited, for
it is really probable that they are much more numer-
ous and extensive even than they have been supposed
to be, but simply that the number of examples of such
relations that rest on an undoubted Scriptural basis is
not large, and hence that caution is required in press-
ing as types what cannot actually be proved to be at
all more than ingenious and plausible analogies. In a
wrord, we may frequently and beneficially use typology
by wTay of illustration, but it is not often that wTe can
use it as the foundation of an argument.

II. If caution be required in dealing with types,
still more so is it necessary in attempting to set forth
second meanings in passages, historical or otherwise,

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRET ATI0K 5^9

which have not been authoritatively declared to in-
volve them. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the
passages which may have further and deeper meanings
than appear on the surface are by no means of uncom-
mon occurrence. In a meditative reading, even of a
few chapters, we can scarcely fail to meet with passage
after passage which we feel, almost instinctively, to be
fraught with a significance much beyond that of the
mere letter, but in the case of which we can never
positively assert the existence of such a meaning, much
less state what we deem it to be. In the New Testa-
ment, the passages which calm and reasonable exposi-
tors have adduced as involving second and deeper
meanings are probably under ten, and out of these the
more plausible, — the reference of the Parable of the
Good Samaritan to our Lord, the reference of John vi.
35 to one Sacrament, and of John xix. 34 seq. to both ;
and, lastly, the significance of the position of the two
thieves (Luke xxiii. 33), — are all so debatable that
more perhaps can never be said than this, that they
serve to render it presumable that there are many pas-
sages which may have second meanings; not, however,
that they substantiate their existence. On such a sub-
ject then, no rule can be laid down; this only may be
said, that he who reads Scripture under the persuasion
that it often contains depths not yet sounded, and mean-
ings not yet ascertained, will certainly read it with far
greater spiritual profit to himself than he who believes
he has fully arrived at the mind of Scripture when he
has made out the mere outward meaning of the letter.
The subject involves many curious details, such as the
recurrence of certain numbers ( of e. g. " forty" in several
incidents both of the Old and of the New Testaments),
and the trace of a supposed mystical economy of times
and seasons ; — but with these the wise and reverent in-
terpreter will never overmuch busy himself. Lie may
feel and know that God is a God of order, and not of
confusion, and he may see much in details in which
that order seems plainly to be traceable, but he will
never seek to prove it by an appeal to facts that may

520 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

probably have no such relations as those ascribed to
them, or by urging principles which all graver thinkers
would not hesitate to pronounce as illusory or unde-
monstrable.

III. The same caution must obviously be displayed
in the third form of Scriptural application, — practical
deductions from Scriptural statements. The very prin-
ciple on which such a mode of applying Scripture is
based, viz., that Scripture is divinely inspired, and that
deductions may be safely made from what are thus,
without metaphor, the very Oracles of God, alike indi-
cates the necessity of such caution, and hints at its re-
quired amount. In all passages, doctrinal or otherwise,
in which the meaning seems to be clear and unques-
tionable, deductions obviously may be made of such a
kind as to assume almost the aspect of definite and
authoritative revelations. In other passages, in which
the difficulties are more of what we have termed a the-
ological character, positive deductions will often be
found to be not only precarious, but presumptuous.
They may sometimes be permitted for private edifica-
tion, being in fact a sort of expanded form of religious
meditation, but can rarely or ever be safely pressed
upon others, or be profitably drawn out into systematic
developments.

To illustrate what we mean by an example : we
may rightly and properly make some deductions of a
definite character from such a passage as 1 Thess. iv.
15-17. There both the plain and distinct statements
of the passage, and the certain fact that this was really
a definite revelation for definite purposes of Christian
comfort (ver. 13, 18), seem to warrant our drawing in-
ferences and recognizing harmonies with other passages
of Scripture which, however strange and mysterious
they may appear, are yet to be considered certain and
legitimate. We seem to have the fullest right for assur-
ing ourselves that there will be a first resurrection (ver.
16 compared with Rev. xx. 5) in which the elect will
alone participate, that the rising of the holy dead will
precede the assumption of the holy living, and that

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 501

the latter, after the similitude of the Lord's Ascen-
sion (Acts i. 9), robed round by upbearing clouds (iv
vecpeXais), perchance the mystic chambers of the last
change (1 Cor. xv. 52), will leave earth, and rise to
meet the Lord in the air. Such statements may seem
revolting to the false and morbid spiritualism of our
times, but they are statements which the gravest ex-
pounders of an earlier day (while traditions of the true
meaning of such revelations might yet be lingering in
the Church) have not shrunk from putting forward, and
which may be justly regarded as calm, historical com
elusions from a deep but historical passage.

The case is different with such a passage as Matt,
xxvi. 29. Here we may perhaps allow ourselves, with
all reverence, to express a humble opinion that the
words may allude to some participations in the ele-
ments of a new and glorified creation, in which the
Lord may vouchsafe to be united with His elect ; but
to say more than this, to draw any deductions as to the
nature of the resurrection-body, would obviously be in
the highest degree wild and hazardous. Equally rash
would it be to draw any definite conclusions from such
passages as Eph. iii. 9, 10, as to the limits of the knowl-
edge of angels in reference to the mysteries of salva-
tion (comp. 1 Peter i. 12), or of the precise part which
these Blessed Spirits take in human affairs from such
passages as Matt, xviii. 10, Heb. i. 14, or from the rec-
ord of such special interpositions as those related in
Acts v. 19, x. 3, xii. 7, al. Even in passages of a sim-
pler nature, our real ignorance of the relations between
the visible and invisible world may prevent our mak-
ing any positive deductions from such passages as
Luke iv. 39, or Mark iv. 39 ; though we can hardly
fail gravely to meditate on the strange fact that in one
case the seeming recognition of the disease as a hostile
potency is certainly where we should have least ex-
pected it — in the record of a physician, and that in the
other the warring elements were checked by personi-
fying words, which (with every deduction for Oriental
forms of speech, or whatever else may be used to dilute

522 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

plain terms) it does seem somewhat hazardous to ex-
plain away as merely picturesque or rhetorical. Again,
to take a last instance, we may feel that in the touch-
ing words at the close of Matt. xxvi. 38 (<yp7]<yopelTe fier
ejiov) some desire, on the part of the Saviour of the
world, for the sympathy in the dread nour of His agony
of those He loved, is actually though mysteriously dis-
closed. "We may muse hereon in adoring wonder, and
feel, perhaps still more freshly, the blessed comfort that
flows from such words as Heb. iv. 15, but we forbear
applying any such statements to the profound questions
connected with the two Natures, and refuse to see in
them anything more than silent but persuasive hints
against the varied assumptions and speculations of
Apollinarian error.

To gather up all, — if in each of the three cases on
which we have dwelt we would apply Scripture with
profit, let us learn, first, to use all types not Scripturally
vouched for, as illustrations, and not as supplying argu-
ments ; secondly, to recognize the existence of second
meanings, but, except in such cases as inspiration may
have revealed them, not to be wise above what is writ-
ten; and, lastly, to let our deductions ever be of a
devotional rather than of a definitely doctrinal or his-
torical aspect, — to accept them as often tending much
to inward comfort and edification, but as rarely adding
much to our knowledge of the deeper mysteries of
Scripture, and never to be so applied without our in-
curring the heavy charge of great irreverence and pre-
sumption.

§5.

15. One portion of the subject now alone remains
to be noticed. We have hitherto been concerned
mainly with the general aspects and spirit of the
Sacred Yolume ; but, as these must ever depend on
just recognitions of the laws of the letter, we will make
a few concluding comments on the language of Scrip-
ture, and on those grammatical principles by which it
seems to be ruled and conditioned.

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AND ITS INTEEPEETATION. 523

Our remarks, however, must be confined simply to
the language of the New Testament. It is for others to
speak of the language of the Old Testament, and to state
how far our present knowledge of the letter of the origi-
nal is capable of extension or improvement. Some of
the remarks that have been already made, and perhaps
some even of the comments that follow, may admit of
partial applications to the Old Testament ; but it is clear
that the circumstances under which the two parts of the
Sacred Volume appear before us, as regards language,
are very different, and that but little of what is said in
reference to the details of the one can be pertinently
applied to the details of the other. Independently of
all the recognized philological differences, we have, in
the case of the Old Testament, a collection of writings
which themselves constitute all that deserves the name
of the literature of the language ; while in the case of
the New we have a small number of histories and let-
ters which only form a very minute, and that too in
some respects an exceptional, portion of the general
literature of the language in which they are written.
Still some broad principles may remain which may
perhaps equally apply to the interpretation of the letter
in both Testaments. It would certainly seem that,
much as has of late been done for the study of the
Hebrew language, especially in Germany, there is still
room for a more scientific development of many of the
laws by which that ancient language appears to be
governed. There is even now, as a reference to any of
the more recent commentaries on the books of the Old
Testament will clearly show, less linguistic precision,
less mastery of details, less recognition of those bye-
laws which, in every language, but especially in the
Semitic, so much regulate special interpretation, less,
in a word, of scholarship, as distinguished from learn-
ing, than we might have expected from the correspond-
ing advances in the Greek language. Nay, even in
what falls more especially under the head of learning,
study of the ancient Versions, much is still lacking.
Our modern commentaries on books of the Old Testa-

524

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

ment are herein scarcely, if at all, more advanced than
the current commentaries on the New Testament, though
in some cases, especially in that of the Syriac, and per-
haps also of parts of the Arabic Yersion,* more real
benefit, from the affinities of language, is to be ex-
pected from their use in the Old" Testament than in
the New.

16. But, to pass to that with which we are more
immediately concerned, — the language of the .ISTew
Testament, — we may find it convenient first to make
a few comments of a general nature relating to the lan-
guage as viewed in connexion with earlier or contem-
porary Greek, and then in the second place to append
a small list of selected comments on such details of
syntax as may seem to require notice or illustration.

"With regard to the general character of the Greek
of the New'Testament, the estimate commonly formed
by modern writers on this subject appears perfectly
correct, viz., that it is neither in every respect classi-
cally pure on the one hand, nor yet simply and essen-
tially Hebraistic on the other, but that it has for its
basis that "common" or "Hellenic dialect" which the
conquests of Alexander and those who succeeded him
spread over a great part of the East, and which, from
involving a mixture of dialects, and especially of the
Macedonian, has sometimes been designated simply by
this last-mentioned name. It must not, however, be
forgotten that this " common," " Hellenic," or " Mace-
donian dialect," though undoubtedly the foundation of
the Greek of the New Testament, received at least three
very important modifications when it became blessed
by being the vehicle of the message of salvation to the
world at large. In the first place, the writers of the
New Testament, though undoubtedly possessing a very
competent knowledge of the Greek language as used
and spoken in their own times, must have often thought
in their native Aramaic, and so unconsciously have im-

* It is perhaps right to observe that nearly all the other Versions of the
Old Testament, except of course the Vulgate, are known to be, or with rea-
son supposed to be, derived from the Septuagint. This, of course, greatly
detracts from their value as exegetical aids in reading the original.

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 525

parted that Hebraistic tinge to their language which is
undoubtedly to be traced in it. The observation is per-
fectly correct that the pure Hebraisms of the New
Testament are not very numerous, and that they are
more of a lexical than a grammatical character,* still it
cannot be denied that semi-Hebraisms, or traces of this
occasionally thinking in their own language while they
were writing in another, are neither so few nor so faint
as sometimes has been asserted by writers on this sub-
ject. No discriminating reader can fail to observe this,
especially in the not uncommon tendency to co-ordina-
tion, where subordination would have seemed more
conformable to the spirit of the language in which they
were wanting ; in the striking predominance of the direct
over the indirect or oblique form when the words or
thoughts of another are referred to ; in the partially re-
dundant uses of pronouns, and even prepositions, and
the corresponding and equally characteristic want of
freedom in the uses of the conjunction; in the compar-
atively rare occurrence of the optative mood, and yet
again in uses of the infinitive (especially in reference to
purpose) even more varied than we find them in earlier
ages of the language. All this cannot fail to strike the
observant reader, and to remind him how much beyond
the recurrence of simple and definite Hebraisms, like
Trpocrtoirov \ajjbj3dveiv, or ty)jeiv ^v^v, the semi-Hebra-
isms or rather the Aramaic tinge of the New Testament
must really be considered to extend. f

Another general difference between the language of
the New Testament and the language of the ordinary
Greek writers of the same or even an earlier period, is
clearly to be explained by the fact that so much of the
New Testament is marked, in respect of language, by
what may be roughly termed oral characteristics. The
Gospels had only assumed the form in which we find

* See Winer, • Grammatik des Neutest. Sprach.' § f., p. 26 (ed. 6).

t Winer very properly calls attention to the existence of two classes of
Hebraisms in the New Testament : pure Hebraisms, and what he terms "im-
perfect" Hebraisms, or expressions, which, though not without some paral-
lelism in earlier or later Greek, are probably to be referred simply to the
influence of the mother tongue. See ' Grammatik,' § 3, p. 26 seq.

52(3 Air>3 T0 FAITn. [Ess at IX.

them, after some years, at least, of oral delivery. Prob-
ably the greater part of the Epistles, and certainly by
far the greater part of those which came from St. Paul,
were written down from dictation. Even in the book
(the Acts) which more nearly approaches formal history
than any of the others, the speeches are not only numer-
ous, but to all appearance faithful recitals of words
actually spoken. The oral element thus pervades the
whole Sacred Volume, and, on the one hand, may
justly be considered as contributing in a very great
degree to that combined simplicity and force which is
so observable in the narrative portions, and, on the
other hand, is equally clearly to be seen and felt in the
longer sentences, suspended structures, and relapses to
a nominative which we so often meet with in the epis-
tolary portion, especially in the writings of St. Paul.
The whole subject is well worthy of attention. It has
often been alluded to by writers on the language of the
New Testament, but has never yet received that con-
sideration and recognition which it seems most fully to
deserve.

A third difference is to be observed in the use of
words and terms, in what may be called a specially
Christian sense. Words sufficiently familiar to the
general reader of Greek, e. g., 7t/ctt£?, iria-reveLv, acoTrjpia,
creeps k. t. \., reappear in the New Testament in per-
fectly new combinations, and are found to be invested
with meanings completely distinctive and peculiar.
Many of these may be traced to the Old Testament,
while some others may have been applications in an-
other language of expressions not unknown to the Rab-
binical writings of the day; still, in a general and
popular way of speaking, they may be considered to
mark a specially Christian aspect of the language we
are considering, and one which is not always sufficiently
taken into account in comparisons of it with ordinary
Greek. Long familiarity with these terms renders us
less sensitive to this difference than we are to some
others, but to an intelligent reader of Greek, in whose
hands the New Testament was placed for the tirst time,

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 527

this perhaps would seem the most striking point in
which its language differed, not only from that of the
classical authors, but even from that of the Hellenic
writers who lived nearer to Christian times.

These three elements — a Hebraistic tone of thought,
not only showing itself in isolated terms but in the
connexion and dependence of clauses, the oral element,
giving its character to whole groups of sentences, and
the Christian element to words and expressions, all
combine to place before us a form of the " common
dialect " as unique as, even in a mere literary point of
view, it is also interesting and instructive. But though
so unique it is still neither to be exempted from the
application of the ordinary laws of the Greek language,
nor to be dealt with as if it had neither certainty nor
accuracy. This last is one of the convenient assump-
tions of the time. Even grammar is thus made to
bend to prejudice. What seems tolerably certain and
agreed upon is at once dispensed with whenever the
"verifying faculty" is thought to demand it. The
plausible rule of interpreting Scripture like any other
book gives place at once to protests against the scho-
lasticism of philology, warnings against the danger of
making words mean too much, and hints that scholar-
ship may not unlikely lead us to impress a false system
on words and constructions. Into all the forms of this
really deceitful dealing with written words we will not
here enter. They can only be dealt satisfactorily with
in detail, and disproved by a just consideration of indi-
vidual passages. We may, however, dispose of the
danger supposed to come from overmuch scholarship
by these two brief remarks : — First, that no one is to
be esteemed really a good scholar in reference to the
New Testament unless he is well acquainted with the
minutiae of Hellenic as well as of Attic Greek, and
knows well when to recognize later usage (e. g. fir) with
participles, tendency to double compounds, &c), and
when (e. g. in tenses, conditional sentences, &c.) to
apply with some rigour the rules of classical Greek.
Secondly, let this undoubted fact never be forgotten, —

528

AIDS TO FAITH. [Essay IX.

that the " common dialect," which we so justly recog-
nize as the basis of the language of the New Testa-
ment, was really itself placed on the corner-stone of
Attic prose, and that a good knowledge of Attic Greek
is simply indispensable. All sound scholars are now
alike agreed in recognizing two contrary principles in
Hellenic Greek : on the one hand a tendency to assim-
ilate provincialisms ; on the other hand a tendency to
recur to Attic usage, which passes at last often into a
hypercritical affectation. Are we then to relax our
study of a pure phase of language which thus implic-
itly is to be seen and recognized in the writings of the
New Testament, and which, by being itself so capable
of precise definition, is ever such a useful standard
with which to compare supposed deviations or corrup-
tions ? This single remark may be appended by way
of conclusion,— that if the Greek of the New Testa-
ment be carefully examined with reference to this
standard (Attic Greek), it will be seen clearly enough,
that the difference is very far from being so great as
might have been expected, and that it is really more
to be felt in what is lacking and limited, in the less
free use of the particles of connexion, and the less
facile combination of clauses, than in what is definitely
solecistic and erroneous. A few instances of this latter
kind of usage may undoubtedly be found, as for in-
stance iva with a present indicative (1 Cor. iv. 6, Gal.
iv. 17*), but they are very rare, and, considering the
various elements that enter into the language of the
New Testament, even strikingly exceptional.

17. Let us close this portion of the subject, and
illustrate in some measure what has been already said,
by a short list of such systematic details as may per-
haps be useful in their collected form to the student of
the Greek Testament, and may not be wholly out of
place even in a general essay like the present. We
will endeavour to avoid all technicalities of language

* The attempt of Fritzche and others to explain this by supposing '/wan
adverb, does not seem at all natural or plausible. See Winer, ' Grammatik,
| 41, p. 209.

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 529

or arrangement ; but, for the sake of perspicuity, will
adhere to the ordinary heads under which such obser-
vations are usually distributed.

(1.) The article claims the first place, and may be
said still to require more careful study than it has ever
yet received, especially in regard to its usage in those
portions of the New Testament which are supposed to be
of latest date. We are told, indeed, that such discus-
sions have "already gone far beyond the line of utility,"
but we shall scarcely be moved by such comments,
when a reference to the pages almost of any expositor
shows how much uncertainty still prevails on this sub-
ject, and how common an error it is to press the force
of the article when it is only present in consequence of
the action of some general rule. Thus, for example,
what the grammarians call the law of " correlation," or,
to speak more simply, the general rule that if two sub-
stantives are in regimen, either both will have the ar-
ticle, or both be without it, is constantly and sometimes
even absurdly violated. Words are often passed as
peculiarly definite, which only assume the form of
definiteness in consequence of the action of the general
rule ; and, again, deductions are made from their sup-
posed indefiniteness when the presence of the defining
article would be a simple solecism. The omission of
the article, however, in the later Epistles is perhaps
the point which at present most requires consideration ;
nay, even in the case of a writer where we should not
have expected it, the Evangelist St. Luke, the oldest
manuscripts, especially as supported by the new Codex
Sinaiticus, disclose a far greater amount of probable
omissions than we should at all have been likely, d
2?riori, to expect. Careful consideration of these will
probably lead to some modification of the existing rules
connected with the use of the article in the New^Testa-
ment. Meanwhile to group hastily together what we
know, it may be remarked : — (a) That the words which
assume the privilege of proper names and dispense
with the article where it might have been expected,
are very numerous in the New Testament. Very im-
23

530 AIDS T0 FAITfl. [Essay IX.

portant examples of this may often be found in the uses
of the words Hvevfia and vo/ios, and doctrinal state-
ments or deductions much modified by a recognition of
what is now, in the case of both these words, a matter
of simple demonstration, (b) That the article is often
omitted after a preposition, but 'apparently subject to
this sort of rough limitation, viz., that when it is the
apparent desire of the writer to be peculiarly distinct
and definite he rarely fails to insert it. Of this, 1 Tim.
ii. 15 may perhaps be referred to as a pertinent exam-
ple. The rule seems to be in such cases, — " Press the
article when present, but do not press the absence of it
when it happens to be absent." (c) The popularly
known omission of the article after the verb substantive
and verbs implying names or designations, is not always
sufficiently remembered by the interpreter of the New
Testament, (d) The amount and extent of the omissions
of the article where the substantive practically coa-
lesces with the clause which follows (e. g. Col. i. 8, rrjv
v/jlcjv aya7T7]v iv UvevfACLTi, or Eph. i. 15, tt]V kclO* vfia^
ttLgtiv iv tw Kvpia 'Itjgov) have not yet, perhaps, been
fully recognized or agreed upon. Perhaps some rule
similar to that alluded to in (b) may not be found in
the sequel to be much exaggerated, (e) Lastly, several
examples of what is called Granville Sharp's rule, or
the inference from the presence of the article only be-
fore the first of two substantives connected with kcll
that they both refer to the same person or class, must
be deemed very doubtful. The rule is sound in prin-
ciple, but, in the case of proper names or quasi-proper
names, cannot safely be pressed.

(2.) With regard to substantives, the points that seem
most to need attention are the different connections and
constructions of the genitive and, in a less degree, of
the dative cases. The use of the former, especially
when under the regimen of a preceding substantive, is
peculiarly varied, and will require considerable tact on
the part of the accurate interpreter. Without descend-
ing to very minute details, or attempting to discuss all
the nine or ten divisions into which the various forms

ESSAY IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 532

of the genitive may be separated, we may direct atten-
tion to the following selected exemplifications of the
uses of tliis case as found in the New Testament : — (a)
The use of the genitive as specifying something in appo-
sition to, or identical with, the noun, by which it is gov-
erned, e. g., 2 Cor. v. 5, rbv appaftcova rod IIvev/AaTos,
Eph. vi. li, rbv Ooopa/ca t?}? Si/caiocrvvr]*; ; (b) a widely ex-
tended use to denote the ideas of origination (Bom. iv.
13, Si/caiocrvvT) 7r/cn-efc>?), and not unfrequently of definite
agency (2 Thess. ii. 13, ayLaafibs HvevpLaTos) ; (c) a still
more extended use in which very varied relations, both
of time (Jnde 6, Kpiais fjueydXri^ rjfiepas) and of place,
whether topographical (Matt. i. 11, /jLeroLfceaia Ba/3v\cj-
vo<s, ib. cli. x. 5, bhbs iOvwv) or general (Col. i. 20, aljia
rod aravpoii), are all simply and briefly expressed by
this flexible case. If we add to these (d) a smaller
class, in which ideas, so to speak, of ethical substance
or contents appear to predominate (see Eph. i. 13, rbv
Xoyov tt}? akrjOelas to evayyeXiov t?}? <rcQT7}pia<$ v/jlcov,
where both ideas appear in adjacent clauses) ; and lastly
(<?), the not uncommon use of the genitive to denote the
prevailing character or quality (Luke xvi. 8, oikovo/jlos
t^5 aSt/aW), — a use which probably owes its frequency
to the part which, in Aramaic, the dependent noun
plays as a representative of the adjective, — we shall
perhaps have enumerated all the more noticeable forms
in which the dependent genitive appears in the New
Testament. Attention to this case, especially in deeper
and doctrinal passages, will often be found to yield
very important practical results, and to suggest topics
for application which popular writers, who commonly
treat all this as mere scholastic pedantry, are com-
pletely unaware of.

The use of the dative is much varied, and may be
disposed of in two or three sentences. If the essential
idea of the case as that of limitation and circumscrip-
tion (the whereof case, just as the genitive is the where-
from case, and the accusative the whereto case) be
properly borne in mind, it is not probable that even in
the less direct uses, — c. (/., in reference to ethical locality

532 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

(1 Cor. xiv. 20), rule and measure (Acts xv. 1), &c,
any real difficulty will be felt. The only usage which
seems to require any notice is one of occasional occur-
rence, where ideas of instrumentality or manner seem to
merge into those of the imaginary place where, or the
general circumstances owing to which, the action is sup-
posed to have taken place. Thus St. Paul writes, in Gal. i.
22, that he was ayvoovfjuevos ru> 7rpocra)7rq) to the Churches
of Judea ; — his countenance was not the instrument, but
rather the imaginary scene of the display of the ayvoia.
Again, he tells his converts at Rome that the Jews
(under the image of the natural branches) rfj aTriGTia
i^6K\dcr0r}crav (Bom. xi. 20 ; comp. ver. 30, 1 Cor. viii.
7) by which he would seem to refer, not to the actual
instrument by which, but to the state of heart and feel-
ing owing to which the judicial act was performed.

(3.) We may pass onward to verbs. Here, again,
we can only make a few general comments, as anything
like even a mere rudimentary outline of the more strik-
ing usages would far exceed our present limits. We
may remark, however, first, that the usual rules of cor-
rect Greek are observed very persistently, in the moods,
tenses, connection of dependent clauses, and even in
the refinements of the conditional sentence. In this
latter case, however, one important element will com-
monly be found lacking, — the optative mood. It occurs
very rarely in such sentences (comp., however, 1 Pet. iii.
14, IT, Acts xxiv. 19), and, indeed, but seldom in the
New Testament generally; its rarity of occurrence serv-
ing to remind the reader that he is now within the
precints of what Lobeck somewhat quaintly terms
" fatiscens Grsecitas." A second general remark may be
made on another sign of grammatical degeneracy, the
use of the verb-substantive with participles, to mark
with some distinctness, ideas of continuance or contem-
poraneity. This we find in nearly all the writings of
the New Testament, and, perhaps, more frequently
than elsewhere, in the writings of an author who we
might have thought would have been least likely to
have adopted it, the well-educated and practised St.

Essay IX.] SCEIPTUEE, AKD ITS INTEEPEETATION. 533

Luke. The cases, however, in which it occurs do not
appear at all of a confused or promiscuous nature ; but,
as we have above suggested, whenever the Sacred
Writer desired to be particularly definite in reference
to time and its duration. A third general remark in
reference to verbs (capable also of being extended to
other parts of speech) is this, — that compound forms
cannot always be safely pressed. There appears to
have been a very marked tendency in later Greek to
an increase in composition without in every case a cor-
responding increase of meaning, and from this the New
Testament is not exempt. Caution, however, must be
shown in applying this remark, as our knowledge of
the exact meaning of compound, verbs in the New
Testament is still very limited. It is, indeed, mucli to
be regretted that the German grammarian Winer
never completed his treatise on this subject. The four
or jivq parts of it that have been published are excel-
lent specimens of a careful and scholarly analysis of a
subject that requires much reading, and not a little
tact and penetration.

If we allow ourselves to devote a few sentences to
matters of detail, we may profitably direct attention to
four points : — (a) an occasional use of the middle voice
in the New Testament (Col. i. 6, KapTrofyopovfievov, and
1 Tim. i. 16, evBel^rjrat, may perhaps be cited as exam-
ples) in which all tinge of a reflexive sense appears lost,
and in which we seem to recognize the presence of that
sort of "intensive" force which the best and latest
grammarians* have assigned to this yet imperfectly-
understood voice ; (b) the use of the present tense, not,
as we are too often told, " for the future," but with its
usual proper force to mark what is abiding, fixed, and
predetermined, especially in reference to the course of
things as appointed by God (Col. iii. 6 ; Matt. xvii. 11 ;
xxvi. 2, al.) ; (c) the somewhat expansive use of the
future in the New Testament, and its partial assimila-
tion of various shades of meaning of an imperative

* See Donaldson, 'Greek Grammar,' § 432. 2. lb; Kriiger, ' Sprachlehre,'
§ 52. 8.

534 AIDS T0 faith. [Essay IX

character, especially when in connexion with a nega-
tive (comp. Matt. vi. 5 ; Acts xiii. 10 ; Matt. v. 21 ;
Rom. vii. 7 ; xiii. 9) ; lastly, (d) the uses of present and
aoristic participles with a finite verb (especially in St.
Luke and St. Paul) to mark the ideas of time, cause,
manner, and concession (comp. Luke iv. 35 ; ix. 16 ;
Col. 1. 3 seq.9 al.). These uses, though not exhibiting
quite the same amount of flexibility as in earlier Greek,
are still sufficiently yaried to call for a far greater
amount of attention from the interpreter than they have
yet received.

(4.) We have now remaining only two groups of
words on which observation seems necessary, the parti-
cles and the prepositions. In regard to their uses we
may notice a very clear and instructive difference,
serving to remind us how sensibly the influence of the
Aramaic element makes itself felt, both positively and
negatively, in some parts of the syntax of the New
Testament. In the prepositions, for instance, we ob-
serve a redundancy as well as variety of use, which, if
we did not call to mind the characteristics of the mother-
tongue of the writers, might seem particularly strange
and perplexing. This desire to imitate the expressive-
ness (in this respect) of the Aramaic, combined, prob-
ably, with a certain loss of sensitiveness to the full
force of cases, may account for the appearance of the
prepositions utto and etc with verbs of "giving" (Luke
xxiv. 42), "receiving" (Mark xii. 2), and even of
" eating and drinking" (Matt. xv. 27 ; John iv. 14),
where, to say the very least, they would be excessively
unusual in classical Greek. The same may be said of
the union of et? and 777305 with a large class of verbs
where a dative wTould have seemed much more conso-
nant with the genius of the language. The variety
again of the usage of individual prepositions is peculiar-
ly striking, and still more so the studied accumulations
of them in a single sentence, especially in St. Paul's
Epistles (Rom. xi. 36 ; Col. i. 16, al.). These latter,
though sometimes perhaps called forth and suggested
by doctrinal distinctions (Eph. iv. 6), seem especially

Essay IX.] SCRIPTURE, AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 535

to indicate an ease and freedom that would have been
looked for in vain in the ordinary Greek of the time.
Equally well marked is the general correctness with
which these varied usages are distinguished. If we
except the tendency to over-use, which we have already
observed, and a few combinations (e. g. of ek with some
verbs of rest, iv with some verbs of motion, and the
extended use of the latter preposition to forms and ex-
pressions where vtto or Bca might have seemed more
usual) which, though not without parallelism in earlier
Greek, do certainly seem to reflect some tinges of incip-
ient degeneracy,* or some reminiscences of the mother-
tongue, there is really not only no prevailing incorrect-
ness whatever in the use of the preposition in the New
Testament, but very frequentfv a sharpness and pre-
cision (comp. Rom. xiii. 1) that reminds the student of
the best days of the language. When, then, a recent
writer on the interpretation of Scripture urges that in
Gal. iv. 13, 8ia with the accusative is to be conceived
as used for or equivalent in. meaning to Sea with the
genitive, he not only shows himself a lax interpreter of
the passage in question, but also shows a deficient
knowledge of a general fact, — the accuracy of prepo-
sitional usage in the New Testament, which ought to
have made such an assumption seem a priori in a very
high degree improbable.

(5.) In strong contrast to this usage of prepositions
stands that of the Greek particles. With the exception
of teat, ovv, Se, yap, and perhaps also a>? and aXkd, in
the uses of which there is not only variety but some-
times well marked idiomatic force and character, there
are not many other particles in the New Testament
which are used with complete ease and freedom. There
is a certain degree of monotony, a deficient amount of
combination, and a want of flexibility in the use of the
particles of the New Testament which stand in marked

* No trace whatever of that utter insensibility to the fundamental meaning
of cases which led the Byzantine writers to confound, for example, ^ra with a
gen. and fiera with an accus., or to.ioin airb with an accus. or dat., crbv with
a gen., or Kara with a dative, is to be found anywhere in the New Testament.

536 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX

antithesis to the ease and even redundancy which are
to be observed in the use of the prepositions. Yet, as
it was in the case of the latter, so is it with the particles ;
there is a pre vailing accuracy in their usage, and a very
general conformity to the laws of the language in its
earlier and better state. There are some exceptional as-
pects, as for instance, the use of firj with participles
when there is no tinge of a subjective negation intended
(the rule indeed is, " Press ov when connected with a par-
ticiple, but not /A?] "), the weakened force of iva, and its
occasional use to designate something lying, as it were,
midway between purpose and result, the use of otv to
introduce another's words in their direct form, combi-
nations like KaOm and juxta-positions like ap ovv, —
such there are, but all such childish statements as the
use of one particle for another, and so forth, are to be
dismissed, as they have long been dismissed by all
better scholars, as very unprofitable delusions. It is,
however, painful to observe how, in some quarters, such
prejudices still hold their ground, and how even those
who affect to lay down well-considered rules on Scripture
interpretation, tell us that "it is an error to interpret
every particle in the New Testament as if it were a
link in the argument when it is often a mere excrescence
of style." Such comments on supposed error are really
themselves very erroneous ; and the pages of any one
of the better expositors of the day, who has attended to
the sequence of thought in his author, would not only
show them to be so, but would also make us feel very
sensibly how completely subversive they are of all
principles of faithful and consistent interpretation. The
German commentaries of De Wette and Meyer are
very good standing protests against such hasty and ill-
considered comments. These writers, though in no way
pledged to orthodoxy in matters of doctrine, have had
far too great experience in the language of the ISTew
Testament to be heterodox in point of grammar. They
never hesitate to bestow the greatest possible attention
on all minutiae, and exhibit in a very satisfactory way
what striking results are to be obtained from a careful

Essay IX.] SCRIPTUEE, AND ITS LNTEEPEETATION. 53^

estimate of connecting particles, and how very near an
approach can be made to the mind of the inspired writer
by this mode of patient and philosophical investigation.

18. This last portion of our subject mast now be
brought to its close. We have left very many points
untouched, on which comment might seem in some
measure desirable, but our article has already exceeded
its prescribed limits, and it now becomes necessary to
transgress no further on the patience of our readers.
Yet it seems impossible to part from those who have
traversed with us the wide domain which belongs to
such subjects as those we have considered, without a
few words of valediction, and a few expressions of min-
gled anxiety and hope.

Those against whom our observations have been di-
rected will probably not be affected by anything that
we have urged. The tone of self-confidence which
marks their writings ; the unfairness, or, to use the mild-
est term, the slipperiness that pervades their arguments ;
the- really cruel and thoughtless way in which they
have allowed themselves to scatter doubt and uneasi-
ness ; their utter carelessness for the feeble, and the
unstable, and the many who, with all their frailties
and shortcomings, still deserve the name of " babes in
Christ," — all these many painful characteristics make
us feel that as far as they are concerned we have writ-
ten and have spoken in vain. There are others, how-
ever, with whom it may not be so. There are kindly
eyes that may have fallen on these pages, which, though
not seeing wholly as we see, may yet have been en-
couraged to gaze longer and more earnestly, and to
wait gently and patiently for a glimpse of the fair land-
scape that lies beyond what now may seem to them
only a cloud-land of eddying vapour and wandering
storm. God in His everlasting mercy, for our dear
Lord's sake, grant that it may be so ! God grant that
such may see and feel that these are no cunningly de-
vised fables, no mere arguments put forward for love
of controversy, no mere assumption of orthodox atti-
tudes for the sake of self-interest (untrue and ignoble
23*

538 AIDS T0 FAITH. [Essay IX.

taunt of embittered opponents !), but a statement of
earnest and serious convictions, which deepen with
deepening reflection, to which every fleeting day bears
its tribute of increasing assurance, which every prayer
quickens, every blessing stimulates, every trial confirms.
May they be moved to judge us thus kindly and fairly ;
and may our poor words be permitted in return to im-
part some comfort in anxieties, and to answer some of
those doubts with which honest and good hearts are often
permitted to be tried.

Lastly, may the great Father of love and mercy
draw all who love His ever blessed Son, and who see
in Him the propitiation for the sins of a whole guilty
world, still nearer together. It may be, when all was
well, we dealt hardly with each other, that we thought
unkindly and spoke with bitterness. It may be even that
we have acted in the same spirit, that we have helped
to break up the household of faith into hostile camps,
that we have smitten friends and brethren, and led those
who would not use our shibboleths to the vale of slaugh-
ter and spared them not. But now the foe is on the
frontier. If love is still cold, yet at least let danger
reunite. Let us yield to instincts, if we care not yet
for principles. Let us do only this, and it may be that
even thus we may be allowed to see and feel that all
was so ordered by a loving Father, — that danger was
to bring about reunion, and reunion to rekindle love.
And then at last, with linked hands and united hearts,
may we again join in praising and blessing our common
Lord, evermore adoring Him who round our weakness
and divisions winds the encircling bond of His strength
and love, "round our incompleteness His complete-
ness, round our restlessness His rest."

THE END.

D, APPLET ON & CO:S PUBLICATIONS.

DELICIOUS WOR^S

PUBLISHED BY

D. APPLETON & COMPANY,

90, 92 & 94 Grand Street Hew York.

The Good Report ; Morning and Evening Lessons
for Lent. By Alice B. Haven. 1 vol., 12mo, 318 pagts.
Cloth, $1.50.

Thoughts on Personal Religion: Being a Treatise on
the Christian life in its two chief elements — Devotion and Prac-
tice. With two new chapters not in previous editions. By
Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D. Fourth American Edition,
enlarged. With a Prefatory Note by George IT. Houghton,
D. D., Elector of the Church of the Transfiguration in the City of
New York. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.

Office of the Holy Communion in the JBooJc of
Common Prayer. A Series of Lectures delivered in the
Church of St. John the Evangelist. By Edward Meyrick
Goulburn, D. D. Adapted by the author for the Episcopal Ser-
vice in the United States. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.

Sermons Preached on Various Occasions during
the Last Twenty Years. By Edward Meyrick Goul
burn, D. D. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.

The Idle Word : Short, Religious Essays on the Gift of Speech
and its Employment in Conversation. By Edward Meyrioj
Goulburn, D. D. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.

An Introduction to the Devotional Study of the
Holy Scriptures. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D. D.
First American from the Seventh London Edition. 1 vol.,
12mo. Cloth, $1.00.

Ei ther of the a"bove sent free by Mail on receipt of the price

P. Appleton <£ Company's Publications.

18 CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.

BY

THE REV. JAMES WHITE,

AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF FRANCE.

1 Vol. 12mo. Cloth. 538 pages

CONTENTS.

1. Cent.— The Bad Emperors.— II. The Good Emperors.— III. Anar-
chy and Confusion.— Growth of the Christian Church.— IV. The Kemoval
to Constantinople. — Establishment of Christianity. — Apostasy of Julian.—
Settlement of the Goths.— V. End of the Koman Empire.— Formation oi
Modern States.— Growth of Ecclesiastical Authority.— VI. Belisarius and
Narses in Italy— Settlement of the Lombards.— Laws of Justinian. — Birth
of Mohammed.— VII. Power of Kome supported by the Monks. — Con-
quests of the Mohammedans.— VIII. Temporal Power of the Popes.— The
Empire of Charlemagne. — IX.— Dismemberment of Charlemagne's Em-
pire.— Danish Invasion of England. — Weakness of France. — Reign of
Alfred. — X. Darkness and Despair.— XI. The Commencement of Improve-
ment.— Gregory the Seventh. — First Crusade. — XII. Elevation of Learn-
ing.—Power of the Church.— Thomas a Becket — XIII. First Crusade
against Heretics. — The Albigenses. — Magna Charta. — Edward I. — XIV.
Abolition of the Order of Templars.— Pise of Modern Literature,— Schism
of the Church.— XV. Decline of Feudalism.— Agincourt.— Joan of Arc.—
The Printing Press. — Discovery of America. — XVI. The Reformation. —
The Jesuits.— Policy of Elizabeth.— XVII. English Rebellion and Revolu-
tion.—Despotism of Louis the Fourteenth.— XVIII. India.— America.—
France. — Index.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

Mr. White possesses in a high degree the power of epitomizing — that
tuculty which enables him todistil the essence from a mass of facts, and to
condense it in description ;* a battle, siege, or other remarkable event,
which, without his skill, might occupy a chapter, is compressed within
the compass of a page or two, and this without the sacrifice of any feature
ewsential or significant. — Century.

Mr. White has been very happy in touching upon the salient points m
the history of each century in the Christian era, and yet has avoided mak-
ing his work a mere bald analysis or chronological table. — Prov. Journal.

In no single volume of English literature can so satisfying and clear an
ideacf the historical character of these eighteen centuries be obtained.—
Home Journal.

In this volume we have the best epitome of Christian Histoby ex-
tant. This is high praise, but at the same time just. The author's pecu-
liar success is in making the great points and facts of history stand out ii)
fcl\arp relief. His style may be said to be stereoscopic, and tho effect w ox-
crtm'liugly impressive. — Providenjk Preb*.